C18NZ (Auto) - Ignition problems

[jgwilliamson]

I thought I'd share a funny issue that I encountered today when trying to start my C18NZ Auto. It is a bit of "knowledge" that probably doesn't apply to long time active cars, but like in my case cars that have been "dormant" for an extended period.

As part of my "running in" of the Cav yesterday I took it on a 100+ mile trip in the north-east of Scotland over mixed terrain. Mainly A/B roads but with 20 miles on dual carriageway at the end.
The car ran well throughout but from about 50 miles or so the rev counter intermittently started showing incorrect readings. These were about 1000-1500 RPM too high then it would settle down for a bit but by the end of the journey it was "wrong" more often than it was "right".

At home I checked previous posts here for similar problems and came across some which mentioned the "green wire" from the ignition coil, so I went off to the garage to check the state of that. It was very dirty and needed a clean, but after that all looked well.

This morning I went to start the car and it turned over but it refused to fire. I did all the usual checks and then based on the the principle of "what did I touch last?" I removed the connector to the coil. Well there was quite a bit of oxidisation on the blades of the coil, so I cleaned them up and applied a little copper grease for good measure and, "bingo" the car started no problem.

I reckon that my fiddling with the connector and wires the previous day must have broken the pin-point area where previously there had been a good connection.

Just back from a 40 mile run and all seems back to "normal", even the rev counter

Cheers,

John

PS A photo from the run yesterday: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bnpww2 ... drive_link

[cavalier1990]

Nice pic John, looks good in the flesh there. Pretty common, things like this when you put some miles on a car that has maybe been lying about for a while. The connectors would have furred up and once they start trying to pass current it gives up the ghost. At least you've got the issue fixed quite easily so plenty more miles of trouble free motoring coming up!

Cheers

Andy

[jgwilliamson]

Nice pic John, looks good in the flesh there. Pretty common, things like this when you put some miles on a car that has maybe been lying about for a while. The connectors would have furred up and once they start trying to pass current it gives up the ghost. At least you've got the issue fixed quite easily so plenty more miles of trouble free motoring coming up!

Cheers

Andy

Hi Andy,

Thanks fpr the comments. I'm treating this like a "running in", doing nothing too drastic while the mechanics get used to working again. So far it seems like it's coming together but as someone said previously on this forum (your good self?), the Cavs always have a surprise up their sleeve
In the meantime I'm getting as many miles on the old car before the winter and today had another 40 odd mile run and it seems like a it has "settled down".

By the way, just watched your latest YouTube videos and I must say you're really going for it. Having seen your previous videos with the parts that you have got I would say that I can see the finished work in my mind already. That's a good picture to have as there were occasions in the last 18 years that I couldn't "see" the way forward, but once I did then it was "relatively" easy.

Be sure to let me know if there's anything I can do to assist.

All the best

John

[cavalier1990]

Nice pic John, looks good in the flesh there. Pretty common, things like this when you put some miles on a car that has maybe been lying about for a while. The connectors would have furred up and once they start trying to pass current it gives up the ghost. At least you've got the issue fixed quite easily so plenty more miles of trouble free motoring coming up!

Cheers

Andy

Hi Andy,

Thanks fpr the comments. I'm treating this like a "running in", doing nothing too drastic while the mechanics get used to working again. So far it seems like it's coming together but as someone said previously on this forum (your good self?), the Cavs always have a surprise up their sleeve
In the meantime I'm getting as many miles on the old car before the winter and today had another 40 odd mile run and it seems like a it has "settled down".

By the way, just watched your latest YouTube videos and I must say you're really going for it. Having seen your previous videos with the parts that you have got I would say that I can see the finished work in my mind already. That's a good picture to have as there were occasions in the last 18 years that I couldn't "see" the way forward, but once I did then it was "relatively" easy.

Be sure to let me know if there's anything I can do to assist.

All the best

John

Hi John

Sounds like you're going about it the right way, is the plan to keep it off the road in the Winter? Probably a good idea if you have another day to day "modern" runaround what with all the salt they put on the roads (The suspicious in me says they are defo trying to kill off our cars with all that salt ).

I just had another day of spanner swinging, or grinder swinging more like it! Weather was a bit rough this morning so tried to take apart the master cylinder in the garage, long story short I'm going to have to get another one, thankfully I didn't record that as a video lol! As the day dried up I got on with cutting out bulkhead rust and a couple of other things.

Cheers

Andy