1984 lucas constant energy misfire

[esprit910]

Hi all

I have developed an electrical misfire (indicated by tacho fluctuating with misfire) so I assume its either the pickup, coil, or the module (or perhaps the rev counter or limiter)

The resistance reading on the distributor pick up is reading low, so I want to try replacing this first.

2 questions:
Has anyone had the same problem, and did the pickup cure it?
Anyone know what other cars used the same distributor pickup?

cheers Steve 84 turbo

[Dr.Hess]

I believe the first thing you should look at is the pickup wire in the dizzy. They seem to fail in your particular model fairly regularly. Something like "revs to 3K rpm then burps" are the symptoms if I recall. The wire breaks inside the insulation from constant flexing as the dizzy advances over time.

Dr.Hess

[teigan]

i have the same vehicle. no distributor problems yet, but i did have to check it when evaluating other electrical problems. did your symptoms strat without warning, or did they appear gradually?

[esprit910]

Hi

I have done approx 3000 miles in last 3 months and it was running well - symptoms started fairly suddenly in highlands of Scotland (the furthest point from home)!!

[teigan]

that being the case, a broken wire or worn contact seems the reasonable conclusion. try cleaning and jiggling everything first before you buy new parts. you can check if dr. hess's theory is right by confirming a [hall effect ] made when the dizzy passes over. you can measure this with your DMM.

[Autocross7]

A company called pretronix makes a great little replacement for all the internal distributor parts. I recently had a problem similar in my 88' turbo. Trouble shooting was not hard and the issue turned out to be the coil pick up in the distributor.

Anyway, the little pretronix replacement came from JAE (as the original style pickup is hard to come by these days) for about 70$ US. It was a plug and play job that, as I said, replaces the internal bits (points or coil, etc...), and the amplifier. Two wires run to the coil from the distributor instead of from the distributor to the amplifier to the coil... and the wires are the same color as the original wires running from the distributor to the amplifier. So, if you want to look original, you will. The wires feed into the electrical box the same way, so everything appears stock until you go pulling everything apart.

Took about 15 minutes to install...
Drive topless!!!
Cameron