Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

I believe the electronic ignition requires a lot of juice to start the car. Try charging your battery up to full capacity before your try to start the car. This helped one friend get his car going so he could take it to the shop for retrofitting back to points.

To test the 5.2V threshold for the e-ignotion:

Obtain a GOOD 6v battery (might be able to use a 12v) and connect the ignition ONLY to the auxillary 6v battery.

Or to put it another way:
Use the existing battery as-is to start and power everything of the car EXCEPT the ignition. Power the e-ignition from the aux battery ONLY. If that solves the starting problem then u know it is the threshold problem.

Quite frankly, i would'nt have e-ignition shouved up my ass on ANY engine except maybe magneto systems like lawn mowers or chain saws. I have some reltively modern engines here that are E-ignition from the factory and trying figure out some way, ANY WAY to convert them to points.

Good Evening all...I found Fiber Optic plug wires at FS Ignitions in Ponca City, Oklahoma and they work great. Ernie

Thanks for the advice guys. Over the last days I disassembled mu starter. It looked OK, so I just cleaned it and polished the commutator. Also undercut the insulation between the copper a little more as it was almost flush with the bars.

When testing the starter on the floor I seemed to turn more freely but maybe that is just my wishful thinking.
I will reinstall it this weekend -if the Owatrol coating has dried, the temperature is miserably low for the time of year in Holland- together with the ignition switch.

Will also try to get my hands on some solid copper plug wire to fabricate the plug leads. If all this does the trick resulting in a good fire up, it sure would be fantastic.
If not it will be the time to retrofit to breaker points and see if that will do the trick.
I understand from the reactions I am not the only one struggling with modern technology in old cars...

Thanks for all the advice, I'll keep you all posted on progress and hopefully results.

Some new developments on the hard starting Clipper.
Over the next few days I will be throwing the electronic ignition out for good and will retrofit the distributor to accept points again.

What I did in the meantime is swapping the modern spark plug cables with built in resistance for solid copper core cables. After that my friendly neighbour helped me out in getting the ignition timing really spot on, him turning the crankshaft pulley and me focussing on the timing marks and sayin 'stop'. Absolutely spot on, that timing.

We looked at each other and said: Well why not try to start the engine now, you never know! First I filled up the float chamber with my newly built in hand pump, works fine. The reconditioned (i.e. cleaned and undercut) starter turned very freely indeed which made us hopeful that enough voltage would remain for the ignition to work. To our surprise the engine started flawlessly, even with the very roughly adjusted caburator which I had completely rebuilt before. Really guys, the engine ran like never before, an absolute dream!

For twenty seconds, then... sudden death. Since then no spark at all. After that I heard and read a lot of stories about electronic ignition on 6 volt systems on the forum and they made me doubt even more. A quick conversation with the guy who installed the ignition for the previous owner made me decide to retrofit to points. He told me that the electrinic system has a threshold of 4 volt, in other words if the voltage should drop under that limit, no spark! It makes no sense having electronic ignition in a car which is driven for a minimum distance each year anyway. IMHO most of the times electronic ignition is built in to heal a underlying problem, which in my case I'm almost sure was the starter which was badly in need of service. And probably now the electronic ignition has decided to quit completely. Maybe it sensed that its days in the Clipper were counted anyway. In other words I think it is a unreliable factor in the car that I must eliminate.

Well let's see if my philosophy will prove right after I will have refitted the old fashioned points again. To do that I will have to refit the small pivot shaft around which the points pivot. This shaft was removed to provide clearance for the optical sensor. A friend of mine milled me a new one with a threaded (3mm) extension. This extension will protrude through the ground plate of the distributor so the shaft can be tightened with a small nut from the underside of the ground plate. And of course ask my neighbour to retime the ignition again!

I can't wait to experience the result of all this. Hopefully a good starting and running line 8!
Will keep you all posted!

OK guys, did the timing this afternoon, checked it all again and turned the key. She almost immediately fired up and ran sweet as a dream.

Looks like all is functioning well. Retrofitting the distributor meant reinstalling the small pivot shaft for the contact breaker points. With the assembly out of the car I went over the distributor again and cleaned and lubricated the lot, just to make sure it was all moving freely.

When rebuilding the carb and having new throttleshaft bushings pressed in I also payed a lot of attention to the automatic choke. At this moment I am very pleased with the result. It does the job well and responses OK in the warming up phase of the engine. I'm letting the engine cool down now and will have another go later this day. By now the choke butterfly valve has returned to the 'cold' position, so I'm confident that the engine will start again without problems.

My conclusion on the whole problematic starting situation is now that the electronic ignition had been installed to mask the real problem. The real problem was the starter that was turning inefficiently and turned out to be in need of a good service. Adding electronic ignition didn't cure the starting problem at all, probably even making things worse because of the built in voltage threshold. The voltage drop caused by the starter resulted in the electronic ignition not being triggered dependably.

Now all modern stuff has been thrown out, including spark plug cables, with a rebuilt carburator and the starter being OK, everything is as it was meant to be when the car left the factory in 1954. A fine starter and runner! Let the summer commence!

Once again, thanks for all your advice!

Congratulations Hans, I think you will have a lot of fun driving that car. I love mine.

I underline what you said exactly. Oftentimes all sorts of "solutions" are added to cars to mask more simple problems. It is always good to go back to basics.

Thanks Ross.
Back to basics is (almost)always good.
Summer is really starting of in the Netherlands now, so we will have nice weather to enjoy the car properly.