Faultering under accelleration

[Dryad]

So glad to have found this thread! A couple of weeks ago I drove the usual ten miles to the supermarket for the weekly shop and everything was fine. Did the shopping, loaded the car started the engine and reversed out of the parking space and put it in first gear to drive away when it stalled. From there on it just refused to start, only occasionally firing and running on what sounded like two cylinders. Changed the condenser and points, checked all wiring but no luck. Ended up having to be towed home by the breakdown service. The next day I stripped the carb and cleaned it out and changed the in-line fuel filter. The engine would now start but wouldn't do anything other than tick over, so I changed the rotor arm - success! Or so I thought. Took it for a test drive, but after about ten miles it started faultering under acceleration (as per this thread) so managed to limp home and tried fitting a spare distributor, set the timing and it seemed fine until I took it for a test run - wouldn't go over 40mph and had almost zero acceleration. Got back, removed the distributor and found the weights were seized, so decided I would be better off with the old distributor, so refitted it, and found it still had the same fault as before. I came in and checked this site and found this thread, went back to the garage and found that when I had replaced the points and condenser that I too had left the earth wire sticking up. So, I made sure it was laying flat to the baseplate, refitted the distributor, reset the timing and...it's cured! Just completed a 40 mile round trip without a single misfire, and the engine pulls better than ever! You may well ask why I didn't change the rotor arm BEFORE I changed the points and condenser, well the nature of the original fault (stalling after running fine) just didn't seem like a rotor arm fault. A lesson learned.

[bmcecosse]

Well done - perseverance pays off. Now - free off the bob weights in that spare dizzy and get it fit for use as your spare.

[Dryad]

I shall. I think it was just gunked up after being stored for many years without a distributor cap on. The bearings are fine though.