Chummy starting issues - possible carb

[Ruairidh Dunford]

I wonder if the van or your Powerspark is faulty?

[Howard Wright]

Hi Ruairidh

I’ve sent you an email.

Howard

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Thanks Howard, have now read through that.

I am not familiar with the Powerspark unit so cannot comment on the pulses they mention as being different.

4.4v on cranking is not correct, perhaps a bad battery or a earth is causing that?

Do you have more that 2.4 ohms at the coil?

Finally, do you want me to send an Accuspark base plate for you to try?

[Howard Wright]

Hi Ruaridh

You’re an early riser like me!

You are right, the old Bacon slicer is well past its refurbishment date. I’ve now installed a forward facing 1929 starter and brand new switch which has rectified the volt drop problem. I haven’t checked the coil resistance but it is brand new.

Thanks for the kind offer of the Accuspark but I do have an Accuspark baseplate attached to a rather worn DK4A that I haven’t had time to refurbish. Just at the moment I’m waiting for the dynamo to be refurbished before I can use the van properly.

Cheers

Howard

[Ruairidh Dunford]

The age of the coil is not an indicator of the ohm rating, if below 2.4 it will cause an issue, whenever it was made.

[AustinWood]

I've drawn a blank looking for a coil with higher resistance and tried using a dropping resistor. Do you know a source?

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Often 12v coils, which work perfectly well on 6v, have much higher resistance...

[Howard Wright]

Hi Jim and Ruaridh

Hmm, I’ve tested all the coils I have (six) and all are around 1.1 to 1.4 Ohms across the +/- terminals. Most are purchased in the last few years or new! All seem to work well with points and one with the Doctor Distributor electronic ignition. Is a 12volt coil the answer? If so what do I need to do to fit it or does it just replace the six volt?

Cheers

Howard

[RupertW]

Right so old distributor and coil back on and.... it fired up instantly and now seems to be running better than ever, although I'm yet to take it for a proper run.
Quite seriously dissapointed with the electrical setup, given the car has entirely new wiring, battery, coil (3.5ohms), leads etc. I'm struggling to believe that trying to start it with the handle rather than the motor would prevent it from running, and bump starting made no difference.

The carb has ended up having a good clean and adjustment while fault finding which can't have done any harm.

I'm still not entirely confident in the old ignition set up as I randomly lost spark recently which seemed to come back just as randomly. Either way I'm in need of a decent back up distributor if anyone has something suitable (I'm not fussed if it's auto or manual advance).

[AustinWood]

Our car always started first compression on the crank handle with Accusparl ignition.