C18NZ (Auto) - Ignition problems
Posted: Sat Sep 23, 2023 7:16 pm
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
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