Interesting Solutions to Start and Miss Issues

[Agent 861]

Since I brought my Tiger I have been going through it and correcting all the errors and faults that previous owners have generated .One thing that had me stumped was difficult starting both hot and cold and a miss when I hit the gas suddenly. I thought it was carb related but going completely through the carb revealed no obvious problems . In defeat I handed it over to my old school mechanic friend . Firstly he found out that the coil was only seeing 5 volts or less on starting as some one had wired the starter solenoid incorrectly . The cause of the miss was in the distributor . When the vacuum was high the bottom plate was rocking and opening up the point gap causing the miss .I never would have found it -We installed my spare distributor and all good . As the distributor is original I will rebuild it and reinstall it but thats a job for later .

 

[spmdr]

The Long time CAT Shop Notes Editor

Herb Mosley gave me a call and ask me to

stop by and assist him with adjusting his Carb.

He just couldn't get it right.

Upon firing it up, it had hesitation and missing.

After looking over the carb, it looking like it was doing

everything it should.

Then it occurred to me the Dist could have issues

with ware and I asked Herb when the last time he checked

the point gap/dewell.

sure enough, the points were almost totally closed.

And the play in the Dist/vacuum advance let the

points occasionally NOT open.

Resetting the point gap Fixed the Carb issue.

We had a good laugh about it.

DW

 

[Agent 861]

I was always taught that 95% of Fuel problems are electrical but I got tunnel vison this time

 

[floyd landis]

My car has the original distributor with points. On occasion, when decelerating, it feels like the engine shuts off then comes right back. It's more than a miss. All the wires are connected, I'm suspecting the condenser. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

 

[Agent 861]

I'm not sure about the condenser causing your problem -They certainly cop a lot of the blame for causing problems . My experience with them going bad is they cause missing at all times (not just on decleration) which is much worse as they warm up . I guess easy to try replacing and see what happens but I have seen new ones bad out of the box as well which makes things a little hard to pinpoint .

 

[o2bdriving]

My car has the original distributor with points. On occasion, when decelerating, it feels like the engine shuts off then comes right back. It's more than a miss. All the wires are connected, I'm suspecting the condenser. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Mechanical or vacuum advance? Sounds like a timing issue, perhaps with your advance.

 

[Austin Healer]

I'd check the contact plate to excessive play. sounds like an inconsistent point gap issue

 

[floyd landis]

I think the stock distributor has vacuum and centrifugal advance. I was decelerating down and offramp and it cut out and came back. Hasn't happened since.

 

[Austin Healer]

It brings to mind the same issue I had with my very first British car.. a 1970 Triumph GT6+... It turned out that there was an internal break in the wire from the coil to the distributor... I didn't have x-ray vision, so there was no way to see that there was a break inside the insulation. I replaced the wire from the coil to the dizzy and never had the issue again. The wire usually breaks at, or near, the spade connector.

This was incredibly frustrating at the time because there was no obvious defect. I'd get out of the car, look cross-eyed at the dizzy and coil, and the damn thing would fire up and run normally. I found it by chance, and blind luck.