Re: Bob's '55 Patrician Blog

Posted by Bob E. On 2019/2/20 22:30:10

thanks. Decided to go with Daytona Parts after calling them and O.D. and other's strong recommendations. They quoted $325 + return shipping. Going to drop it by UPS tomorrow and Tim at Daytona said it should be about 2 weeks. I didn't get that secondary shaft to move freely yet and it seems like it might take some extra care so I opted for the professionals. I will post pics when it comes back.

Now on to the ignition system. Ever since I got it in 2016 it would idle somewhat smoothly yet have an irregular miss. Thought maybe it was the carb, so I rebuilt with no change. I put a timing light on and it seems like it was randomly not firing, did the same with a spark tester.
Since 2016 (and almost no miles) I have replaced:
-Spark Plug wires
-Spark Plugs (Champion H10s, then AL 437)
-Coil (twice as post on 1st NAPA one stripped)
-Dist cap
-Dist rotor
-Wires to dist from coil
-Wires inside dist
-Points and condenser (tried a couple), have NOS ones now.
-Cleaned Dist but did not completely take it apart
-New battery
-Dist vacuum advance rebuilt by Terrill

External resistor on firewall measures 1.7 ohm, which seems about right.

Just pulled it out again and looked at the unit. I put it back together just like I got it, but it is different than the service manual. In the manual, the condenser lead is separated from the points breaker lever spring and the lead from the primary terminal by an insulator. But in mine, they are all in contact with each other. Wondering if that is causing my intermittent spark problem? Thinking I will see if I can change it to match the manual to see what happens (once I have a working carb so I can run the engine).

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