Arching Distributor Cap and Cylinder

[thomas]

This is going to be a rough and ready writeup of electronic ignition kit installation.

The distributor, don't worry if your dizzy doesn't look like this, most are Delco, this is Bosch.



The complete kit, tiny little things:



Some useful items, pre-loved pink pyjamas, not so essential some thinners to clean away old oil and grease:



Dizzy opened rotor-arm off:




Points out, baseplate exposed:




Remove the condenser too, and any associated wiring, clean up the baseplate with clean rag/solvent




Keep the old condenser and points clean, dry and available for replacement if ever desired.



Trial fit the sensor unit, route the cables round the outside of distributor, away from moving parts:



Looks good; sparingly coat underside of sensor unit plate with heat conductive paste (provided), and seat the unit on the little locating dimple and refit with the screw that formerly held the points down:





Next part is the kit's little hollow ring, its shaped to match the lobes on distributor shaft, rotate to locate it and push it down, pop the rotor arm back on top, replace and clip on the distributor cap:






Two little round terminal to spade terminal connectors were provided with kit, I'm using one to make an extra connection on coil thats come through the ballast resisitor but will like the coil get the full 12v for starting. This isn't the best recommended method but allows use of the existing coil-ballast setup:




Hookup the red wire of pickup sensor to extra new connection on positive + side of coil, the black wire to the negative side of coil that the points used to connect to:



And that's it done; it's a good idea to check and set the static timing if necessary, with a strobe light, some chalk or a crayon is useful to mark the crank pulley pointer to make it stand out under the strobe light:

[pbottomley]

Yes very very simple job, these only came on the market about a year ago and i would highly recommend everyone to fit them, simple works and reliable, although I agree with you stick the old points and condenser in the glove box just in case.

[House]

I had to advance the feck out of mine to get it running right after fitting electronic ignition. If you buy a kit i'm sure a garage would only want £20-30 for fitting it and getting it running well if your not sure. You shouldn't have to touch it again for a long long time.

[pbottomley]

Craig, I suspect the advance was only to alight the magnetic ring with the pickup point not to actually advance the ignition ? I noted in my that the red pickup sensor was in a different location to normal points pickup.

[golden wonder]

WOW! Thank you sooooo much for the photos and the advice on getting an electronic ignition...I have been having problems with it starting especially in wet weather and this looks like it will help! BRILLIANT!!! Ill buy one when I get paid and get a mechanic to fit it and show him your photos!!! Thanks again ....Will let you know when its fitted and how I get on .... Cant wait...no more dreading the wet weather!

[thomas]

Just an update on this, I've replaced the coil and ballast resisitor now with a 12V full-time coil, having this in advance would have simplified wiring up the coil end. The White-Blue wire from the solenoid is no longer used and is taped up at the coil end and disconnected from the solenoid too and taped up there, so the wire is redundant completely. I've had to extend the coil live feed 3 or so inches as it was pulled taut, with vibration, with no provision for strain relief, it would in time break as the spade connection seemed attached with what seemed like just a few strands of wire -hardly enough for the current to the new coil and the electronic kit. A 12v soldering iron took an age to heat up, stiffening my resolve to ditch the dismal dynamo. During testing when it had been purring away for about a half-hour, it conked out and would not restart --panic stations, tantrums etc. I was just about to dust off the points and condenser when I had a look at the fuel gauge and the crisis was over! It had simply ran out of fuel.

Photo shows simplified coil wiring with just black (-) and red (+) from dizzy, and switched positive supply.

[hbpeter]

Thanks for this right up and photos Thomas, very helpful to a lot of people.

At least you didnt call a home mechanic out when the car stopped, like I did once. I blamed the fuel gauage, it was still reading over 1/4 full, but tank was dry, bit embarrasing!

Peter

[golden wonder]

Hi All,

Just about to buy this electronic ignition kit http://www.simonbbc.com/electronic-igni ... -kit-delco for my Viva HC 1.2 and noticed it says this on the product description

To be used with a coil with resistance above 1.5 ohms only

Would my car have any other coil on or how do I check if its 1.5 ohms?

Thanks again

[thomas]

I think their website has a guide, you'd need a ohmmeter, a basic multimeter should have this functionality. I tested the spare original delco coil I had to find it had a resistance through the primary windings of around 2 ohms, so it was assumed it met that criterion but just marginally, the actual coil removed more from the car was only 1.7 and with the tolerance of such meters, It was judged the poorer of the two coils and wasn't acceptable. It is not recommended with these kits that a lower voltage (6-8v) coil with ballast resistance is used with them, so I would plump for a new coil. If you want to try and use your existing coil, then it can be connected through the ballast resistor, or the kit can take its own power supply from the spare 12v on the ballast resistor itself, both ran perfectly. My motivation for persisting with the unrecommended original coil plus ballast resisitor arrangement was due to miserliness and a fear that somewhat high voltages from the dynamo (not alternator) charging system might be too high for the delicate kit.

I would recommend you purchase a standard 12v coil and eliminate the original coil and ballast completely, more heartily so if your charging system uses an alternator and peak voltages are not excessive.

While this kit from this supplier appears to be operational, I've not been impressed with their cheapest strobe light, the first worked with the point system perfectly, but doesn't flash at all unless at higher revs with their own electronic ignition kit installed, which is useless as you want the slowest idle possible and the vacuum tube disconnected and blocked for basic timing check. Having slightly melted the pickup lead of this first gun on the hot manifold, I eliminated the melted section - which had only affected the outer plastic, exposing the metal braid - by cutting a few inches out and re-attaching the inner two cores to their respective places on the pickup internals, and it continued not to work consistently as before, I ordered a second identical lamp and it too, out the pack, only works erratically, rather more successfully with the pickup at the distributor cap end rather than the plug end or often not at all. Time only will tell if the electronic ignition kit is as indurable or fickle as their other products.

[thomas]

Having written that, in fairness, thinking I might be the victim of a duff plug lead serving number 1 plug, though with no evidence of any mis-fire, and having noticed that the lead for number 1 was different, thicker than the others, I swapped it with number 2 plug lead --same or similar results at idle speed with the erratic lamp. However as it was getting dark, I chanced to spot flashes of white light reflected off the shiny engine mounting, which were taking place inside the rear of the dynamo, thought it perhaps normal action of the brushes but the ignition/discharge instrument light is now full on and doesn't extinguish when revs increase, it looks like the dynamo has given up the ghost entirely. Teething troubles ... I'm assuring others, as much to convince myself.