Found On Road Dead

If you can insulate a rotor against the spark of a T coil, it should be good for anything. Speaking of which, I have been scheming about how to avoid the shorted rotor syndrome in the future. Plastic or rubber disc, epoxied in the center of rotor under the tab? I realize if it's too thick the cap would be too tight. Thinking I'll put a blob of clay with a waxed paper lid under the spring steel tab and see whar it measures, then go to something thinner. I have some flex-tape (as seen on tv) and man is it sticky. Maybe just a disc of that after cleaning rotor with laquer thinner. Of course I'm probably just over-thinking this. Again.
 
Having had a rotor fail straight through the top part under the tab, I "bullet proofed" my next new ones with a blob of epoxy over the center of the top. They've worked well since.
 
Well as some of you had read, this isn't the last of it..... BUT, this morning I fired it up and it was clearly running on seven cylinders. Turns out #1 was not firing. No spark at all off plug wire. Tried a different wire, good blue spark. I found a set of copper core 'cut to fit' wires so I made a new one for #1. No more miss. But I did notice the bad wire was a fuzzy core modern wire. (it wouldn't spark at all). That's odd , I would never buy those resistor wires for old school ignition. Then I had a pretty clear recollection that the woodie's plug wires came from a donor engine. They were off some filthy mess I dragged home but I liked the red plug boots and they all matched and were already the right length. I cleaned them with laquer thinner and they looked great on the refreshed 221 I built for the woodie. BUT..,. They were old and not real wire. I'm just hoping when I take it for a test drive in the morning, it was the wires all along that were a big part of the problem , along with the shorting rotor.
 

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GB, those high resistance carbon core wires may have been what caused the spark to jump through that rotor. Path of least resistance and all you know...


Terry
 
RKS, I’m away from my home for a couple of weeks so remind me then ( PM me) and I will shoot you the info.
Lawrie
 
Gary, had absolutely the same experience! Rotor, Cap, and Bubba dist. all checked out, but couldn't get rid of intermittent miss. Changed my "lovely" Belden blue carbon cores for solid copper....Voila....or maybe Viola!!!....no more miss. Lot's of wasted hours chasing this. Also, I have an original Ford/Philco radio, so thought I might get interference with the solid copper.....nothing!!


Best of luck with all your projects!!.....Dick.
 
RKS.PA said:
Gary, had absolutely the same experience! Rotor, Cap, and Bubba dist. all checked out, but couldn't get rid of intermittent miss. Changed my "lovely" Belden blue carbon cores for solid copper....Voila....or maybe Viola!!!....no more miss. Lot's of wasted hours chasing this. Also, I have an original Ford/Philco radio, so thought I might get interference with the solid copper.....nothing!!


Best of luck with all your projects!!.....Dick.
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Yessiree Dick! That was it! Just did the run to town (which is uphill both ways) and she pulled like a flathead V8! Not one stumble, not one miss. Coming home up the long grade where it ran the worst this summer, I used to have to downshift half way up, but roared over the top in High. Well, I woulda roared, but some pokey tourist was creeping along in front of me. I rode his tail but I refused to downshift. I still topped the hill easily in high. Now I wanna go on a road trip, but alas, half the state is on fire and probably not the best idea when your car is made out of wood! Thanks once more to all of you for the help!
 
My typical fail is to put the bad rotor back into my box of electrical stuff so I can pull it out again in the future and go thru the entire sequence again. Kinda like my wife's dad had a keyboard that had an inoperative key....I took him a brand new one and he saved the old one for a spare!!
 
So completely LOL. I took the old rotor and tossed it into a trash can beside the shop to stifle the urge. Well the following saturday we were going to the dump and after loading the cans into the pickup I found that old rotor sitting on the ground. I had missed the shot. For a brief moment I thought about sticking it in my pocket just because... And my spare laptop has 5 inop keys and a separate add-on keyboard with a cable that makes a connection sometimes. My daughter bought me this one. You musta read my mail!
 
“Now I wanna go on a road trip, but alas, half the state is on fire and probably not the best idea when your car is made out of wood! ”
Ya....I can see a problem there!!!......glad your back running on all eight!!!.......Mark
 
"The Brillman Company" has Packard 440 wire available in several different amounts. It is all I will use on these old cars.
 
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