cheap points & condensors

M

Majicmark

New Member
I know this subject has been mentioned before & after nearly 30 years in the trade (worrying when you think about it) i should know better but i bought some cheap points & condensors from e-bay. I thought i would give them a try & save some money :oops: . Well when i fitted them all seemed good & the car ran fine, i drove to Beaulieu to the spring autojumble & made it back to the Cornish boarder,then i noticed the car struggling more under load up hills etc. I have been driving around locally for a while & again all seemed fine so i forgot about the problem until i needed to go on a run again. Under heavy load i had a misfire across the range (not an obvious cylinder) it gave the impression it was on all of them. It didnt dawn on me at first but then i remembered i had fitted the cheap parts so i pulled over & re-fitted the old ones (kept them in the boot as back up set luckily).
Now the car is back to its former self. So please dont even consider cheap copy parts as others have warned & i ignored because you may aswell run on a burnt out set. A good quality set will run fine but i can understand why so many people change to electronic ignition.
 
From what I've been following in other posts (use the search facility for condensors), it's not necessarily the fact that the condensors are cheap or expensive, but they are very badly made these days and many do fail after a few hundred miles. Whilst it is good practise to change these parts, good used ones should always be kept as spares.

...... and yes, it is a main reason for moving to electronic ignition.

Bri.
 
Had exactly the same problem with a cheap set I bought on eBay - got 1/2 mile down the road and engine gradually died and wouldn't restart, arranged tow from son-in-law but whilst waiting got bored and put the old points and condenser back and it started. Tried again the next day thinking I might have done something wrong, but engine ran too rough to take out which saved the embarassment of a tow. If I can find them will post the details of where I got them - thought I was buying Lucas but it was only an identifying reference. Tried again on eBay and got genuine Lucas this time and ok.
 
Ive had the same problem with dizzy caps and rotor arms. This includes Lucas ones. So called premium makes dont seem that premium. Seems the NOS 80s lucas ones seem best from my experiments so far but i'm still not that impressed...


Rich
 
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