Morris Minor Owners Club

a friend has reccomended that i replace the points bits on my dizzy i would like fit electronic but funds dont allow specially now my door keeps opening going along. earlier one going along my car starting misfiring really badly so i pulled over turned it off whipped off the cap and coated it in wd40 started it and she ran ok again. i know i need a new cap but dont really know what points should and shouldnt look like.

if its a standard 1098 then it will be a lucas 25D,

i would firstly give the entire dizzy a good clean, its very dirty in there, which wont help matters. as for the points, best get a very fine nail file and give them a light clean and then recheck the gap (.012 if memory serves), then do the same for the cap, give each of the contacts a clean, this should help.


as for the door opening, a little light grease on the striker plate should help it close properly. if not, then i would suspect there are some structural problems that are causing the cars body to flex and the door shifts and opens.

its a 948 with a hs2 carb if that makes any difference, the door has only started popping open recently and looking at what i would assume is the striker plate looks pretty mashed from years of use.

thinking about it, its only been doing it since i fitted new door seals.

ahh, in that case it might be worth getting a new plate and moving it out by a few mm, that will solve it

your pics are blury and the dizzy is dirty. it looks like a 25D to me, but the way to tell for sure is to clean here: (red circle)
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Looks like quite recent points and condenser in there - but the rotor arm looks very secondhand..... Re-set the points gap and a new rotor arm, and probably a new cap too, should keep it going nicely!

Points gap=0.015 not 0.012

12 thou is fine - the longer they stay closed = the longer the coil and condenser have to 'charge up' !

without sounding dim how do i adjust the points gap ?

and is there anything at all special about the red rotor arm being sold or is it just red?

Looking at the corroded and dirty state of that distributor I would almost guarantee that the vac advance is not working and wager that the mechanical advance is sticky if working at all. all that crud and lack of lubrication doesn't bode well for the rotor shaft either.... Given that and the lack of experience I would suggest buying one of these replacement distributors with electronic ignition. Maybe in this case not doing so is false economy!

Hello BMCE,

"12 thou is fine - the longer they stay closed = the longer the coil and condenser have to 'charge up' !"

As long as you accept that the adjustment frequency will go up as the points wear.

Alec

how do i check that the vaccum advance is working i assume it involves the vaccum pipe running to the carb.

engine off. dizzy cap off. disconnect vac pipe from carb and suck the pipe hard. watch to see if the gubbins in the dizzy moves.

but beware of the chance of getting a mouthful of orrible stale petrol and water that could of been sucked into it over the years.

too late lol, sucked on it and didnt see anything moving, what sort of problems would this cause. just trying to weigh up what would be cheaper buying a new points dizzy and fitting leccy ignition or just buy an electronic ignition set up, would i be able to retro fit the points to an electronic ignition distributor in case of failure?

As others have said - and since the vac advance isn't working, then yes best buy will be a new dizzy from simonbbc or accuspark. Up to you if you spend the extra for the electronic version - personally I would just stick with the points.

my next maybe obvious question would be how do i tell if i have a ballast or non ballast coil, also i cleaned the dizzy a bit and its a 25d dizzy.

You should have a non -ballast coil on a Minor. Should be 3.2ohms across the two terminals.