You may recall that many weeks back, I had to return home when my car started running very poorly, sputtering and dying. This was on one of the first very cold days of the season, and the results were me limping the car home and wondering what was wrong. This led me into a chain of events with my ignition system questions about fuel contamination, sparks, wires, coils, ignition switches, caps, rotors, distributor gears, compression strokes, and firing direction. That problem did not come to an end until the new year.

Exactly one week ago, on the way to work, my electronic ignition died a rather final death. It was however proceeded by rough running, sputtering highway speeds, back firing, misfiring and then not firing at all. I had to take the day off work, swap my distributor in the middle of the largest urban park outside of Central Park in NY, and drive the car merrily home. the weather warmed up somewhat and things have been performing OK since last Thursday using a regular points dizzy.

Considering my fuel economy issues, I've been driving will little to no choke when the car is still cold - and only using full choke to start the car.

Well. Temps have dropped quite a bit today, and returning from work, the car ran a little badly at first. It took a while for the engine to really get to a good operating temp so I pulled off a waited for a while. It was running fine, so I headed off towards home...

It got very bad on the interstate when power suddenly vanished. The car kept running, but would start to die under load. I limped it off the interstate onto a side street. It then sputtered and died while on a gradual incline. It started right back up and I dealt with very low power and coasting until I got to a large parking lot. Leaving the car idling I richened my air/fuel mix two flats and sat for a bit idling. I decided to stay off the interstate and take side-streets home.

When I left the parking lot, I was treated to norming running and power. This kept up for several miles and hills until not long after I passed the site of my last breakdown (same park). I climbed and descended several hills - including a steep one in front of the art museum.

While making the last, somewhat gradual, climb out of the park, I again got some sputtering and lost power. I pulled off for a bit let the car idle until it seemed normal, and then set off on my way with normal power. This did not last as long and I had to pull off and stop several times. Power was failing and the car sputtered and died a several times. I pulled off much closer to home, shut the car off and drained the glass dome of my fuel pump. Plenty of liquid/fuel in there. Got her going again with good power for a few hundred yard until I got over the last big hill between me and home.

I got the car close to home and stopped at the closest gas station.

My mileage with conservative driving and no choke this week?? 16.7 mpg. Barely 1 mpg improvement! WTF?

So... She sputtered a bit the last few blocks home (which was all downhill).


This is very similar to what took me off the road last 2007, but it was not nearly so bad. I've been through two or three tanks of gas since my initial similar performance problem back in December. My initial thought is water, or now a chunk of ice, in the tank. I'm clueless as to how I could get that out when frozen.

However, this may still be an ignition problem. I'm not getting of the pops one usually hears when the fuel is too weak nor am I getting any of the backfires or weird smoke that would make me think my points are bad. I'm sure this is some basic mechanical problem, but I'm running out of ideas. If it were water, you'd think I'd have the problems when the weather was warm and that I'd be through it after a few tanks of fuel. I use only reputable fuel stations and not the same one every time.

This is really getting ridiculous. It is way too cold to be playing these games with the car...

If open to any and all suggestions on solving this problem.


Here's a few bits on my present setup that might be relevant:

-Stock Points Dizzy no vacuum mechanisms
-New Condenser (July)
-New Points (July)
-Blue Bosch Coil 140-series (Last Week)
-Magnecore Wires (Older, but work fine)
-NGK BP6HS Plugs (July)
-Bosch cap/rotor (July)
-Bosch 35Amp Alternator/Regulator
-1800E Radiator/Fan/Shroud
-Mobil1 10W40, Recently changed