pro_junior Report This Comment Date: March 20, 2011 05:24PM
went to high school with a kid that had one side of his face all fucked up, he
and his dad were working on their car and his dad was smoking...the battery
exploded...
fossil_digger Report This Comment Date: March 20, 2011 10:30PM
a head gasket precautionary replacement procedure. snicker snicker
Mrkim Report This Comment Date: March 21, 2011 03:23AM
I HATE Fuckin Chevys
x Report This Comment Date: March 22, 2011 05:43PM
Wow... Who would of thought that you're one of those "Ford pisses on
Chevy" guys?
woberto Report This Comment Date: March 23, 2011 02:22AM
I still don't know what I'm s'posed to be looking at.
Mrkim Report This Comment Date: March 23, 2011 05:39AM
It's a POS Chevy Classic I ripped apart to do a head gasket/timing chain/water
pump/thermostat replacement on. Haddn touched a Chevy in years and reminded
myself really quickly why I love Mitsus so much.
This MoFo is one sad piece of engineering in so many ways they're too numerous
to recount
Once more for emphasis
I HATE FUCKIN
CHEVYS! 
BlahX3 Report This Comment Date: March 23, 2011 04:41PM
They had cool distributors on the old gals though. You could tweak point dwell
on the fly thru a little window with an allen wrench. I think JC Whitney had a
kit to give you a knob on the dash to mess with it while driving too. Not that I
know what the hell good that would do...
Mrkim Report This Comment Date: March 23, 2011 10:00PM
Point distributors, wow, I haddn thought about those in a while, carburetors
either for that matter. Can't say I miss either of 'em much, but ... with a pair
of flat blade screwdrivers, a 1/2 X 9/16" distributor wrench and a
matchbook cover you could set everything to do with the fuel and ignition
systems, unless you had a Chevy, which required an allen wrench too
Adjusting the timing advance on the fly from inside the car was a neat trick for
old school hot rodders. When playin with carbs even the humidity and ambient
temperature could be slightly compensated for that way without havin to pop the
hood. 'Course tweakin the mixture slightly was also kinda important for those
who always wanted all the HP they could wring out.
Back before crank triggered ignitions were common I designed one for an old 2.3
Ford I had by guttin a reluctor wheel style distributor, choppin the wheel into
into segments and had a machinist cut slots for 2 segments in the crank pulley,
then used the pickup coil mounted on a bracket to trigger an MSD ignition, then
also had the MSD timing advance module inside for adjustment. Worked like a
champ.
Good Times
BlahX3 Report This Comment Date: March 24, 2011 05:28AM
I wanted to mess with electronic ignition kits. I never did.
The computer controlled stuff these days is undoubtedly cool but the good ol'
mechanical stuff was easy to fix.
Mrkim Report This Comment Date: March 24, 2011 02:40PM
Yeah the new computer controlled stuff is actually the best yet in regards to
ignition and fuel management and is directly responsible for huge leaps in
efficiency while making control of turbo systems waaaaay better than were ever
possible previously. In fact, until engine management reached its current state
turbo systems were really pretty dodgy at best, which has completely turned
around since the timing and fuel systems can now react in milliseconds and
stop/minimize engine damaging events
Alotta people aren't aware of it but the average car today has more computer
power than did the Lunar Lander!
While old hot rodding was done with wrenches and tweakin, today it's done with
lap-tops, manipulation of sensor data and piggy-back electronic devices that
"fool" the onboard computer systems
pro_junior Report This Comment Date: March 24, 2011 10:18PM
years ago I had a '77 ford f-150, I replaced the p.o.s. 351M with a Boss 302
...ended up with a ground fault short in the process and
could not find it, even took it into a couple shops and nobody could figure it
out...
anyway, the condenser and/or the points would just randomly fry out from time to
time. I would buy hi-pro because they seemed to last longer...
I'd be driving along and the truck would just die, I'd have the parts and tools
out of the glove box before I had coasted to a stop and have the new parts on
and back on the road in about 2 minutes...
woberto Report This Comment Date: March 25, 2011 02:22AM
The concept of passing the actual ignition current through points, rotor &
cap seems odd these days. Modifying those setups to electronic ignition was
common, by using the dizzy to simply "signal" when to supply the spark
meant using a token voltage and protecting the points etc. These days I would
never attempt anything related to ignition or efi.
Mrkim Report This Comment Date: March 25, 2011 01:56PM
Yeah, though points and a condenser were a simple enough method and survived
for a long time as the way it was done, I don't miss the required maintenance on
'em.
I'm not 100% on this but I don't think the actual ignition voltage passed
through the points. It seems like the points were just a device to trigger the
charged coil voltage which then passed that voltage to the center terminal on
the distributor which then was distributed to the individual spark plug
terminals by the distributor rotor.
On my old Capri I picked up an Allison XR-700 (<- I think) unit that replaced
the points/condenser with a slotted wheel that slipped over the distributor
shaft then had an LED on one side and a pick-up sensor on the other side of the
disc and passed the signal to an ignition box which then triggered the coil to
fire. That was a big improvement since it required no maintenance.
I hear people say all the time these days how complicated new computer engine
management systems are, but I disagree. The new systems take all but spark plug
and wire replacements outta the loop as what's required to maintain an ignition
system and wires/plugs now last 100k miles or so, unlike the old days when
wires/plugs only made it 30-40k miles and points/condensers were only good for
about 1/2 that at best. Todays stuff is far more maintenance free but they do
take system diagnostics outta the hands of most people as it now takes
ex$pensive diagnostic equipment to troubleshoot a system unless you just happen
to have spare parts layin around to swap in till you find the offending
component.
As far as fuel systems go, there's no more fiddling with carburetors
periodically and if you travel in varying elevations the engine management
systems will take care of adjusting the overall spark and fuel systems to
compensate for the elevation changes for you. In the old days if you were a
flatlander and went into the mountains you'd have to re-adjust your points and
carburetor or else loose a significant portion of both fuel economy and
horsepower.
And .... a good set of tires used to only last between 10,000 and 30,000 miles.
Tires that lasted 40k-60k were just a dream!
All in all I don't miss the "good old days" as I see those as today
BlahX3 Report This Comment Date: March 25, 2011 02:32PM
Excellent points on all counts.
Yes, you are correct, the points switch on and off 12v to the primary of the
ignition coil. You may have had a high resistance short between the primary and
secondary windings in the coil that caused the points and condenser to fail
rapidly. As I recall that was not uncommon.
Mrkim Report This Comment Date: March 25, 2011 03:30PM
Every now and then folks who believe dearly in the "good old days"
make for some excellent bargain finds for the rest of us.
I was at a swap meet about 10yrs ago where a buddy managed to pick up a complete
new intake manny, fuel rails, big throttle body and injectors for a 302 HO from
a cat who had bought a new crate motor from Ford and yanked the injection set up
so he could replace it with a carburetor set up!
I quizzed the guy about why he wanted to use the less efficient carburetor
instead of the injection set up and he said because his harness wasn't set up
for fuel injection and because he believed he could make more HP with a
carburetor. I stopped short of tellin the guy what a dumbass I thought he was
to keep from pissin him off and queerin the deal for my buddy but did mention
that there were companies that made retrofit harnesses to allow installation of
injection set ups and computer engine management systems for older cars and that
in my opinion there was more HP to be made with FI and a computer than with a
carb and older ignition systems (which is pure fact!).
My buddy wound up snaggin about a grand worth of hard parts for $100 and we both
walked away smilin
BlahX3 Report This Comment Date: March 25, 2011 04:57PM
Yep. The development of automotive technologies and engineering is very
impressive. I still have an appreciation for the way-old-school engineering. I
still like old vacuum tube guitar amps too and own a couple.
woberto Report This Comment Date: March 26, 2011 12:20AM
Yes I think you're right about 12v points but they usually resided less than an
inch from the rotor button and the whole dizzy was a high voltage disaster
waiting to happen. However this setup proved very reliable for almost 100 years
so who am I to say otherwise
woberto Report This Comment Date: March 26, 2011 01:51AM
This one might be easier to wotk on Kim...
