Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 9:12 pm Post subject: A "Revolting Development"
Yesterday I took the M38 down the road after putting on some new brake drums for a little test.
When I gave it more gas at speed of about 35 mph the engine kept hesitating intermittantly. I went back to the shop to change out the condenser. I had to pull the distributor to do it. I noticed as I took the condenser out that it had been rubbing on the dist. cam lobe, I Put another condenser and some new points, and adjusted to .020". Set the crank pully to fire with rotor pointed to no. 1 in Dist. and adjusted distributor for points to open with an ohm meter.
Gave it a shot of gas with primer pump and tried to start the engine. No start, but have fire. Gave another shot with primer pump,
tried a couple of more times, but no start.
Change condenser back to original one. Tried to start it again and the carburetor coughed once.
Only thing I haven't done is pull the plugs and get No 1 cylinder at TDC and make sure rotor is at the no. post in dist. I didn't think that I needed to do this because the distributor will only go in one way. And it was running before.
But tomorrow, I'm going to start over with the original points and condenser that were working and make sure no. one cyl is TDC. Such a simple thing yet this doesn't make sense. Before the engine always started after a couple seconds of hitting the starter.
I'll work on it some more tomorrow _________________ Tropical Veteran
35th Inf. Reg. "CACTI" 4th I.D. VN
Amateur Radio K5XOM
A condensor either works or it doesn't. There is no in between.
Losing the spark under load can be a couple of things. How does the cap look? Any tracing, where the spark is following a different path to ground? A weak coil can also be the heart of your problem, as can tired or overgapped spark plugs.
I couldn't stand not solving the problem before going to bed and coaxed the wife out to give me some assistance last night. I had her spin the motor over to establish TDC on No. 1 Cylinder. I looked at the distr. rotor and realized what I had done to cause my problem. Then I recall when I had the distributor out I removed the cam lobe from the shaft to clean it up because it had been rubbing on the condenser. I put it back on 180deg off. Therefore No. 4 was firing when No. 1 should have been.
It performs better now with a little miss when accelerating in 3rd gear. think I will get a new distributor cap and rotor next. _________________ Tropical Veteran
35th Inf. Reg. "CACTI" 4th I.D. VN
Amateur Radio K5XOM
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Then I recall when I had the distributor out I removed the cam lobe from the shaft to clean it up because it had been rubbing on the condenser. I put it back on 180deg off. Therefore No. 4 was firing when No. 1 should have been. 
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