You'll never believe this
08-26-02 | 10:51 PM
#1
Thread Starter
Full Member
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 245
Likes: 0
From: CA
You'll never believe this
I currently drive an 85 GSL. I have had it for around 7 years. My first 7 and 2nd 7 were wrecked. The first two always ran perfect and idled like glass. My friends with piston cars would always freak cause they thought the engine died.
Well, my current car has always idled bad and got lousy gas mileage. My other two would get like 30+ on the highway. This one gets like 18 to 22 if I am lucky. My grandfather drove the car for a few years when I had my 98 protege and had taken into about half a dozen places for tune ups. I personally had it smogged twice and watched them check my timing at the smog stations.
Well, I went out to time my car yesterday and guess what?
My leading spark plugs weren't firing. My trailing plugs were working though. Turns out I have a bad ignitor for my leading pickup. I replaced the ignitor with another one. Car ran better but still bad.
Hit it with the timing light and about 30 degrees off. Turns out whoever had it rotated the shaft one tooth up so that the trailing plug would fire in the center of the rotor. They also did some swapping of coil lines. I put everything back together the way it should be and she runs perfect.
Whats amazing, is that all this time I have been running one one plug (80k miles!). I always attributed the problem to the carb (since I have had so many problems with leaking out the jets). The car has had power, just never as much as my other two.
All these years, not one mechanic has figured it out. My grandfather paid a mechanic 500 bucks (without me knowing) to tune and smog the car and he never noticed anything.
So moral of the story (other than buy a timing light) is that you can't trust mechanics.
Oh, as for reliability, any car that can loose an ignitor and run for 80k miles is a keeper if you ask me.
Well, my current car has always idled bad and got lousy gas mileage. My other two would get like 30+ on the highway. This one gets like 18 to 22 if I am lucky. My grandfather drove the car for a few years when I had my 98 protege and had taken into about half a dozen places for tune ups. I personally had it smogged twice and watched them check my timing at the smog stations.
Well, I went out to time my car yesterday and guess what?
My leading spark plugs weren't firing. My trailing plugs were working though. Turns out I have a bad ignitor for my leading pickup. I replaced the ignitor with another one. Car ran better but still bad.
Hit it with the timing light and about 30 degrees off. Turns out whoever had it rotated the shaft one tooth up so that the trailing plug would fire in the center of the rotor. They also did some swapping of coil lines. I put everything back together the way it should be and she runs perfect.
Whats amazing, is that all this time I have been running one one plug (80k miles!). I always attributed the problem to the carb (since I have had so many problems with leaking out the jets). The car has had power, just never as much as my other two.
All these years, not one mechanic has figured it out. My grandfather paid a mechanic 500 bucks (without me knowing) to tune and smog the car and he never noticed anything.
So moral of the story (other than buy a timing light) is that you can't trust mechanics.
Oh, as for reliability, any car that can loose an ignitor and run for 80k miles is a keeper if you ask me.
08-26-02 | 10:59 PM
#2
Old [Sch|F]ool
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 12,635
Likes: 464
From: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
lol it's amazing how some cars will run just fine on trailing 
it sounds like someone backyarded it by resetting the dizzy.
hell what i would have done was just cranked on the trailing adjustment, then turned the dizzy so i could set trailing to leading spec, then ran the trailing coil to the leading tower in the dizzy cap.
...
or i would have just replaced the ignitor
it sounds like someone backyarded it by resetting the dizzy.hell what i would have done was just cranked on the trailing adjustment, then turned the dizzy so i could set trailing to leading spec, then ran the trailing coil to the leading tower in the dizzy cap.
...
or i would have just replaced the ignitor
