engine and drivetrain She's at it again...fuel issue

[Buckeye]

Darrin, we like pictures. Can you take picture of stuf when it breaks and share. You going in circle with this ignition.....

['76mintgrün'02]

As Buckeye requested, Lets See Some PHOTOS!  

Failed parts are fun to see (as long as they are not mine).  

 

(Good enuff lite to get cleer photos pleese).

 

Photos of the inside and outside of the distributor, as well as the failed points and the burned wire.

Why can you not go to where you spliced in the new wire and see what color the one you cut off was?

Show a photo of that splice... unwrapped, if nothing else.

 

Pretty minimal information to work with out here....

 

Did you say that your distributor is a mechanical only model, or does it have a vacuum pod on the side, with a line running to the base of the carburetor?

 

What model number is your distributor?

 

Are you buying points based on the distributor number, or the car model/year?

 

One of my distributors was not getting proper lubrication and was tight when I tried to spin it by hand (out of the engine).  I am lucky I found it, or it would have not lasted long.  Feel the base of your distributor after a good drive and see how hot it is... maybe it is getting hot and cooking those cheapo plastic points....??

 

There is a felt plug in the top of the distributor shaft, under the rotor.  It is advised that you add a few drops of engine oil to that felt every time you change the points.  (this does not apply to the frequency with which you do it though).  That oil lubricates the mechanical advance mechanism under the points plate.

 

Buckeye did a nice write up on refurbishing his distributor in the articles section.  You should check it out and get a visual idea of what is inside of one.

 

The timing light will help you assess the condition of your distributor.  Looking at the BB in the hole, it should be steady.  If it bounces around, your distributor is in need of 'servicing'.  If you take jireland2002's advice and get a gun with the advance feature you can take that diagnosis a step further and see how the advance mechanism(s) are working.  Worthwhile investment.

 

I understand your desire for a quick fix and you may find one, but it will not be a quick education... in that there is a lot to learn.  (luckily it is fun)

A few tools (^mentioned above^) will teach you a ton!

 

Is a Haynes Manual on your 'tool list'?  It is a good one.

Edited August 28, 2015 by '76Mintgrun'02

[darrinos]

Here's a pic of the burned wire...it appears black where I spliced it, but in this pic it doesn't appear the same color. I put grease on the distributor shaft, and there is no felt block under my rotor. Yes, it's a mechanical, non-vacuum advance unit. Yes, I'm buying points for make/model, not distributor part number. I'm in Oklahoma here...ok? lol. I might want to go to the dealership and order a set of decent points, but I'm thinking that since I haven't been greasing the dist. shaft, maybe that friction is causing to much heat and causing the points to fail? Just an idea. Anyway...see the pic.

 

~Darrin

[Buckeye]

Picture of piece or wire - LOL, do we need to sign NDA to see pictures of ignition components.

[darrinos]

Ok...so yeah...a piece of burned wire. I don't have the point anymore...threw them away at the parts store. But in the future, I'll keep in mind that you all have a morbid taste when it comes to the death of autp parts. It's sad, really. lol....I understand...and I'll get pics from now on. I looked at my distributor and didn't see any part numbers on it, but if you still wanna see it, I can manage a photo I'm sure. Here, lets do this...tell me what you want to see, and I'll take picture of THAT.

[Arizona02]

 Grease should let the points rubbing block last for thousand of miles. the number on the dist  is on the side of the housing starting with 0 231 … … and you might need a mirror to see it if on the back side facing the firewall.

[Stevenola]

Points and condensers are of such poor quality these days it makes sense to eliminate them either with a Pertronix or 123igniion distributor if yours is suspect.  And source a good quality german made coil, rotor, and cap.  Kingsbourne makes great plug wires.

[AustrianVespaGuy]

Hi Darrinos, I think you're on the right track but sounds like we still have some work to do here.  Firstly, do heed Mint's advice, some clear pictures of the coil and inside the distributor (complete with wiring) as well as some feedback on timing light and/or dwell results would be extraordinarily helpful at this point.

 

Next, it seems that getting the points working properly has only made a minor improvement, correct?  So if the points are new and set properly, I would next suggest investigating the condenser and the coil.

Condensers are dirt cheap, so just pop a new one in and see if that helps. A dead/dying condenser could also explain why you car keeps destroying points.  Points don't like it very much if they arc a lot.

For the coil, first thing to know is the color, and second is the resistance readings of the primary and secondary windings.

 

And I'm also still worried about the melted wire, and the picture sadly doesn't help much to identify it, so more details one where it was going from/to (an again a picture of the new replacement) are a priority.

[darrinos]

I took the car on a 300 mi trip this weekend, and it ran great...not a problem at all. But like AVG mentions above, I'm a little concerned with the wiring because of a) the burned wire, and my tach is still doing crazy things. Sometimes it's rock steady, other times its shows 0 rpms, or can be found at any other value as it's bouncing around. The car runs fine during these episodes. You say to check the primary and secondary windings on the coil...please let me know how to do this. I will try to get some pics this week to make it easier for you guys to help me. I really appreciate all the info you're offering...now it's time to put it to use.

 

~Darrin

[Simeon]

Get a multimeter from Radio Shack or equivalent, this does not need to be expensive . This will measure resistance in Ohms (plus voltage, current and maybe some other stuff. You can even get automotive ones which measure dwell and have tachometers too).

Set it to measure resistance and put one probe on the + terminal and one on your negative terminal. This will tell you the primary resistance. With the meter on the same setting, measure by putting one probe on the centre, high voltage terminal and on on the negative terminal.

Do these measurements with the ignition off and all wiring disconnected. Report back what you find.

[AustrianVespaGuy]

Yep, just how Simeon described it.  Expect low resistance on the primary side (maybe around 1 ohm) and high resistance on the secondary side, maybe around 10,000 ohms.  Make sure and tell us what color your coil is too (black, blue, or red), so we know exactly which one we're dealing with.  And still replace that condenser if you can, it's only these things that can affect the tach like that.  Points open, condenser prevents arcing, coil fires, and flyback voltage from the coil drives the tach!

[tups]

Is the tach aftermarket ? If you tampered with the wiring around the coil and found a wire loose at the coil and reconnected it, that could be the source of your tach problem. In addition, if this loose wire shorted out gainst something, it could be the cause of  the burning. Most tachs are designed to go *into* the coil primary wire - so often a new wire is run into the interior of the car to the tach and from there to the coil. If the old wire was left in place and you reconnected it, the tach will behave erratically. I know mine does. Why do I know that ? Well, I had this "Odd, there a loose wire here" moment...

[fwardell]

Hi, I'm new to this topic, and it looks like you're getting sound advice. I'd suggest just going ahead with the Pertronix. Mine has worked flawlessly for 5 or more years. And no worries with points, etc. Basically it will eliminate that issue. My belief is that your coil or its wiring is bad. Suggest going ahead with all new stuff. And do take care in keeping or bypassing the coil resistor, depending on which coil you get. The only other things I can think of are a bad ground in the ignition system (ground problems is common issue with '02s), perhaps in the tach wiring behind the dash, and carb float problem. I'm sure we're all looking forward to the solution.

[darrinos]

OK. so here's the latest update...with pics.

 

I haven't tested anything as suggested as yet, so I apologize. I'll be doing my testing this week. Just wanted to let you know of changes made and behaviors observed.

 

I drove the car 100 miles souhteast to a little town name Noel, Missouri  for a camping/canoe trip and it ran like a champ all the way there and it got a lot of attention. Funny that no matter how raggedy one of these 02's are, people love 'em anyway. Had a lot of hills and curves and smiles on the trip. BUT...the tach was still doing it's weird thing where it would sometimes drop to zero and other times go kinda loco. I then drove it another 70miles north and it did fine again...until I shut if off in Lamar, Mo. (I name the towns just in case some of you out there like to check into things like that.) I came out of the Walmart and it wouldn't start. It acted like it had no fire. Thinking that God had a reason he didn't want me to arrive at my next destination on time (and this was highly likely), I sat for a while and since this didn't seem to miraculously solve the problem, I went through my usual procedure of checking the point gap, the condition of all the connections, etc. I finally decide that now would be a good time to re-do all of the connections on the coil and the condenser.

 

After doing so in the parking lot (seems to be my place of choice for repairs these days), the car started right up, losing only 45mins of my time. I arrived in Nevada, Mo approximately 30 minutes later after having a nice little buzz up Hwy 249. Interestingly enough, I noticed that my tach no longer went crazy and when on the highway, it stayed very consistent and showed 4000 rpm like it should. (My speedo doesn't work so I use the tach. I've also found that since the exhaust is of a noticeable volume, that I can also judge the speed using my guitar tuner on my phone. If I keep it a "C#", I'm doing ok. If I push it to "D"...I'm taking a risk.)

 

I made it into town and back out with no issues (car-wise, that is. Romance wise is another issue entirely.) I drove east on 54hwy through the hills and curves on purpose and then down 13hwy to Springfield, Mo. Got to my daughter's house...no one home. Started right up and went to the ATT store because my phone had gotten wet on the river, despite buying a "water-proof" container for the phone. (Next time I'll save the fifteen-bucks and use a freaking ZIPLOC.) When I pulled in I was greeted by a very young kid who was a BMW fanatic and couldn't stop talking about the little $800 bimmer that I'd just driven in. The kid had an AMAZING e30 of his own. Anyway...got the new Galaxy S6, hopped in the car...wouldn't start.

 

I sat in that parking lot for the better part of 2 hours trying to troubleshoot while waiting for the car to not be flooded. While doing so, I noticed that one of the wires for the coil had come out of the connector. Thinking that was the problem, I fixed it and went to start it. Nothing doing. I man stopped to talk/help and asked about a ballast resistor. I told him that I didn't have one originally so I didn't put one on last year when I got this coil. After he left, I saw on the coil were the words "REQUIRES BALLAST RESISTOR". Hmmm. Never saw that there before.

 

Worried that my coil was probably a little worse for wear, and not trusting it all that much as of late, I hoofed it over to the nearest parts store...Pep Boys. Coil for a '74 Bimmer? No sir. Not in stock. Special order only. "OK, whatever..." I notice that they have a high-performance section in the store so I go over there to see what they might have. I found an MSD6-A coil, and a ballast resistor, electrical connectors and some wire, and off I went, effectively separated from $75, to try to work magic on the car.

 

While hooking it all up, I wasn't sure which wire the ballast went on. I was positive that it went on the positive side of the coil, but other than that...not sure. So I hooked it up as you see in the pics. I also replaced another wire that looked like it had been melted that I should have replaced when I did the last one. All back together now, I started the car right up, and off I went...kind of. It was sputtering under acceleration especially, but after I baby it through that, it ran fine. Eventually on the highway, the sputtering went away. It was almost as if it had to "register" or something because after working through the gears and the RPM's one time, it never did it again. It was almost like a rev-limiter going through a learning process.

 

Anyway, I drove it another 170 miles back to Broken Arrow, OK...(home) and it did fine, except for the "WACKY TACH". It had started up again. Otherwise, no issues. After arriving home and showering to remove all of the river scum off of me, I decided to head out for a drink. No real issues though I noticed when turning that it would cut out. Then it died on me at one point, but started right back up. I made it to my appointed destination, and upon leaving....it started. But on the way home at 1:30am...it died just past an intersection. NOT a good situation. It would not start again. I found the best out of the way place in a parking lot and open the hood and saw that the wire had come out of the connector to the condenser. (Dammit. I know...I know.) Fixed that, started right up and headed home.

 

It started up today, ran well. No issues. SO...with all of that info in mind...here are the pics. Using a mirror, I was still unable to find any numbers on the distributor, even on the backside. How do I determine which wire is the resistor wire on the car, and do I have the ballast resistor on the right one? I'm really getting interested in buying a dwell meter to that I can get this nailed down. I want it to purr smoothly but at this point it does not. I realize that my distributor has a lot of play in it as well and this may affect that. On the melted wiring, could this have been caused by not using the ballast all this time? Other than these questions, let 'er rip, boys.... Would love to hear what you have to say....

[Simeon]

A lot totake in there. The ballast resistor is supposed to be wired with an alternate feed path for the coil via the starter solenoid that bridges the resistor out temporarily while cranking to give the coil the full 12v.

 

You need to stop fixing this in car parks, get a wiring diagram, some suitable wiring materials and slowly, methodically, rewire everything between the fusebox, coil and distributor. Get a dwell meter (and timing ligh) and set the points and timing as per the book. 

 

Too many hurried repairs, too many connections 'coming off' - you are going around in circles without any part 'known good'