Cock up! Help please

[Johnwindwood]

Guys

Some of you know that our car is due to be in the NEC later this week. Yesterday whilst getting it MOTd I had problems with stalling and misfire on the way home.
Now we had in stock new dizzy cap, leads and rotor so it seemed sensible to change them.(Old ones WELL past their best!)

Came across a problem that I think is common on refitting-one of the dizzy cap clips fell off. The only way to sort it out was to remove the dizzy. Not having done
this on a Lotus before, I saw that there was a clamp bolt as usual, and a bolt holding a plate to the housing. Assuming (As in other cars) that the bolt into the housing would preserve the timing,
I loosened it and the dizzy promptly turned........I hadn't realised that the bracket was slotted. What a stupid system.

Anyway, job completed and reassembled. Nice strong spark but the car won't start-backfiring only. Am I right in thinking the timing is now out?

The only thing I can think to do is turn the dizzy bit by bit until it improves/fires. Any other bright ideas?

I hate this car.......

[TAR]

First of all, are you sure you put the distributor back on correctly and not 180 degrees out?

As long as you didn't turn the engine over without the distributor in place, the timing can only be a bit out. Use the clamp bolt to apply a little pressure so the distributor stays still but can be turned by hand. Get someone else to try and start the car. Move the distributor around a little at a time until the car starts. Once you have it running, keep turning until you get the highest revs on tickover, either side of the correct position will cause the revs to drop.
this should get you running again.

[amarshall]

I TOLD YOU NOT TO FETTLE IT THIS CLOSE TO THE SHOW.

[Johnwindwood]

I TOLD YOU NOT TO FETTLE IT THIS CLOSE TO THE SHOW.

It wasn't my idea........

[Johnwindwood]

First of all, are you sure you put the distributor back on correctly and not 180 degrees out?

As long as you didn't turn the engine over without the distributor in place, the timing can only be a bit out. Use the clamp bolt to apply a little pressure so the distributor stays still but can be turned by hand. Get someone else to try and start the car. Move the distributor around a little at a time until the car starts. Once you have it running, keep turning until you get the highest revs on tickover, either side of the correct position will cause the revs to drop.
this should get you running again.

Its definitely not 180 out-I tried it to be sure. Engine hasn't been turned.

I'm going to have another go now......

[amarshall]

Should be about 10 degrees BTDC static, IIRC. The timing marks on the front of the engine will help.

[Johnwindwood]

Getting nowhere. The range of adjustment in that slotted bracket is small and I've tried pretty much all positions. On top of that of course the car is flooding each time we try to start it.
It fired once but died pretty much immediately.

Problem is that I have never really done timing-its a bit of a dark art to me.

I'm just really annoyed that it wasn't possible to remove the dizzy without disturbing the timing-like on every other car I've ever done this on.

Not really sure where to go from here.

[amarshall]

When you replaced the leads, did you do them like for like, or did you make an assumption about firing order and direction of rotation of the rotor arm? And is your rev. limiter still in circuit?

[Hawaiis0]

RAC home start................

You're buying the beers

[Lotus-e-Clan]

1) Get yourself a 12v bulb with wires attached.

2) Best to have crocodile clips on end of each wire...but somehow attach one bulb wire to the NEG (ie switched, , NOT the positive ignition feed) side of the coil and the other bulb wire to earth (battery negative).

3) Turn on the ignition

4) Rotate the engine slowly (socket on the pulley nut) until the bulb lights -at which point STOP

5) Look at the crank pulley. If the dizzy is in the right position the crank pulley will stop at 10 degrees before the Top Dead Centre (TDC) mark on the engine casting close to the pulley.

6) If not (5). Then set the crank pulley to 10 degrees before TDC. Switch on ignition (bulb attached as in (2)). And rotate the dizzy SLOWLY until the bulb just lights.

7) Clamp the dizzy and you will have static ignition set to 10 degrees BTDC!

Double check timing: With the dizzy clamped , ign ON, and bulb attached, rotate the crank pulley until the bulb just lights .....the crank TDC mark should now align with the 10 deg mark on the engine casting if everything is as Goldilocks would wish (just right)!

[Alan_M]

You can also use a multimeter/voltmeter set to DC instead of the bulb if you have one. These often have crocodile clips on them already.

[Esprit2]

John Windwood
1984 Lotus Excel (1985 MY wide body)
1975 Austin Allegro 1750HL
1975 Austin Allegro 1100 deluxe

John,
An '84/85 Excel 912. I'm an Eclat/ Esprit S2 guy, so help me understand your problem... which ignition system does it have? Breaker points? Lucas CEI with AB-14 amplifier? By 1983, we only had the Turbo Esprit on this side of the pond, and it's 910 had the CEI ignition.

The points ignition can be static timed with a continuity light/ voltmeter as described above, but the CEI electronic ignition can't. The engine needs to be cranking over at some minimum rpm before the CEI's Hall Effect pick-up can read it. Points & CEI require two different timing procedures... tell me which one you need.

Regards,
Tim Engel

[Johnwindwood]

Guys

Thanks for all your suggestions-I'm pleased to report that it now lives again!

It seems that it was a combination of flooding from the starting attempts and fine adjustment of the dizzy position. I propped the throttles open for a couple of hours for the fuel to evaporate
and it fired up straight away.

As a side note-unplugging the rev limiter as Angus suggested seems t have cured the poor hot running/restarting too. I'm going to fit an Omex in its place.

[DavidOliver]

If any doubt about timing when refitting the distributor, the timing belt not having been reset against it´s pulleys, I find a Stroboscopic Timing Light will inmediately tell you where your spark is relative to crank. You will need it anyway to accurately set the timing once you have got the engine running. You will also need it for your Omex setup and for regular maintenance.
As far as I remember there is an offset dog on the distributor gear so there is no possibility of installing 180º out, unless the timing belt has been reset.
While you have now got the distributor into an engine running position, tune it with the Timing light. And then you use wife nail varnish to mark the set position on distributor body, clamp and housing, just in case you want to fiddle just before you have Angus commitments.

The cheapest stroboscopic timing light is fine for this job, no need for tachometer readings or adjusters.

As an aside, I find you need a bit of patience to get the distributor fully into location as the oil ring seal gives some resistance and you never know if the gear dog is orientated correctly. If not fully located this leaves the distributor separate from the drive shaft, you spin the starter, no spark and you start over again resetting the crank to TDC. Try a dentist´s mirror to see the shaft position before you try and insert the distributor, and account for the angled gear teeth to move the rotor arm on full location.
As another aside, I always set the distributor cap onto the body before installing the complete unit so that the cap clips can be properly located and indeed siliconed in.

Dave the cog.

[smithersoli]

Had a similar boo boo myself recently, loosened the bolt to adjust timing and the car died. I knew I had a dodgy connection on one of the plugs to the AB14 so spent an hour trying to fiddle with it all, only to discover that the dizzy had disengaged itself from the oil pump drive shaft and hence no spark.

Am going to be converting mine to Ford Edis Ignition using a megasquirt asap and am hoping for better ignition performance and a reduced risk of fire.

Will document it for the forum.