02-01-2019, 07:07 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-01-2019, 07:11 PM by Andy Bennett.)
Further to my earlier post about my lack of spark, I thought I would round off the story as I don't like not knowing what went wrong as it usually means it will happen again.
Having got everything running with my old bosch distributor, I went back to the Accuspark unit and nothing, no spark, back to Bosch and all was good. At least I now knew I was looking at a distributor issue.
As a reminder this is an Accuspark unit bought in Sept 2017 and installed early 2018, it has covered fewer than 500 miles.
I have investigated and found that one of the weights is free. The result is that there is no advance and retard mechanism working, the spindle just freely slops backwards and forwards and rotates through the advance and retard allowance. This tied in with my first problems of a near misfire as I tried to start the engine.
I have attached 3 photographs.
The first shows the weights sitting incorrectly and not closing up under the springs.
The second shows the one weight working correctly and centralised having been pulled back in. I have annotated it with a note to the pivot point where the peg is secure).
The third is annotated to point out the pin (as on the previous picture) and the plate with the hole which should be located on the pin but is floating free allowing the weight to move around and the spindle to rotate freely.
The pin is not sheared. It is just proud of the surface and you can juggle the plate back to catch on the pin and then all appears to work fine on the spring return mechanism, and then it slips off again.
It might be that it has been in this precarious position since new and has just slipped off a pin that was simply too short. Or the pin may be a push fit into the weight and may have slipped down. I don’t want to take it further apart having spotted the problem.
It appears to need a new pin inserted and either secured properly or just a new pin of the correct length used so that the plate cannot slip off it.
I have contacted Accuspark and will let you know what happens.
Andy
Having got everything running with my old bosch distributor, I went back to the Accuspark unit and nothing, no spark, back to Bosch and all was good. At least I now knew I was looking at a distributor issue.
As a reminder this is an Accuspark unit bought in Sept 2017 and installed early 2018, it has covered fewer than 500 miles.
I have investigated and found that one of the weights is free. The result is that there is no advance and retard mechanism working, the spindle just freely slops backwards and forwards and rotates through the advance and retard allowance. This tied in with my first problems of a near misfire as I tried to start the engine.
I have attached 3 photographs.
The first shows the weights sitting incorrectly and not closing up under the springs.
The second shows the one weight working correctly and centralised having been pulled back in. I have annotated it with a note to the pivot point where the peg is secure).
The third is annotated to point out the pin (as on the previous picture) and the plate with the hole which should be located on the pin but is floating free allowing the weight to move around and the spindle to rotate freely.
The pin is not sheared. It is just proud of the surface and you can juggle the plate back to catch on the pin and then all appears to work fine on the spring return mechanism, and then it slips off again.
It might be that it has been in this precarious position since new and has just slipped off a pin that was simply too short. Or the pin may be a push fit into the weight and may have slipped down. I don’t want to take it further apart having spotted the problem.
It appears to need a new pin inserted and either secured properly or just a new pin of the correct length used so that the plate cannot slip off it.
I have contacted Accuspark and will let you know what happens.
Andy
Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think!