The message to which you are about to reply is shown first. GO TO REPLY FORM



 VIEW    REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE    PRINT   SAVE 

Distributor Diagnosis (A bit long) 140-160 1972

I was out to tune-up our “new” 72 142 E yesterday and ran into some distributor problems. I am hoping some of you here will chime in with some advice.
1st- I gapped the points to .015 in. then attempted to start the car to check the timing. The car would not start. After many tries and swapping out coils I decided to try an old set of points and condenser from the bottom of my tool box. That got the car running.

With the points gaped at ~.015 (my book says >.014) my dwell is about 47. My book says dwell should be 59-65.
Should I just adjust the points to get the proper dwell?
Is Dwell more important that point gap?

Then while trying to set the timing something interesting happened. With the vacuum line disconnected and plugged the engine would not hold a setting of 12 deg. As I rotated the Dist. (motor running, using timing light) at about 10 deg the engine would slowly rev up and advance the timing to about 20 deg. On its own. In other words I couldn’t set the timing at 12 deg. because it would advance uncontrollably once I got to 10deg. Why is this happing? Could it be linked to the dwell?

Lastly (I promise) the distributor retards the timing when I plug the vacuum line back in. Is this one of the vacuum retard dist. I vaguely remember reading about on the board and everyone suggests disconnecting the vacuum line and letting the advance weights to the work (I think). What, if anything, can I do to this set up now to get the most out of it???
I intend on upgrading to electronic ignition when I have the money but this is what I have for now.
Thanks for all the help!!!
Wayne






USERNAME
Use "claim to be" below if you don't want to log in.
PASSWORD
I don't have an account. Sign me up.
CLAIM TO BE
Use only if you don't want to login (post anonymously).
ENTER CAPTCHA CODE
This is required for posting anonymously.
OPTIONS notify by email
Available only to user accounts.
SUBJECT
MODEL/YEAR
MESSAGE

DICTIONARY
LABEL(S) +
IMAGE URL *
[IMAGE LIBRARY (UPLOAD/SELECT)]

* = Field is optional.

+ = Enter space delimited labels for this post. An example entry: 240 muffler


©Jarrod Stenberg 1997-2022. All material except where indicated.


All participants agree to these terms.

Brickboard.com is not affiliated with nor sponsored by AB Volvo, Volvo Car Corporation, Volvo Cars of North America, Inc. or Ford Motor Company. Brickboard.com is a Volvo owner/enthusiast site, similar to a club, and does not intend to pose as an official Volvo site. The official Volvo site can be found here.