Barn find montego

[H48HPE]

Roperman,

I've put new NGK plugs, a unipart cap & rotor arm, new plug leads and a new filter in.... I also tried a spare coil i'd got for my Maestro it made no difference, still yellow sparks.

I was kind of thinking the sparks were crap, glad you've confirmed this!

the battery was new, if I put it on a jump start it still desnt do anything... it cranks for a while longer but even ends up grinding to a holt with the other veichle (ford 1.8 diesel van) connected into it...

It cranks over but is a bit slower than you would hope, although its cranking fast enough to make an attempt at firing, but not even a cough.

a couple of weeks ago we noted on one attempt just after the battery had been re-charged that one cylinder fired, but only once... then again a single fire on another occasion.

apart from these 2 isolated occasions not even a cough!

Andy


its

[Guest]

Try cleaning up the spade terminals for the coil. Usually have to do this on my van when its been stood for a while. Might be worth trying a different rotor arm if you have any others handy, i've seen a few new ones not work as they should.

[H48HPE]

i'll certainly try it...

I just assumed because I was getting a spark it was ok... I wondered if because the engines still tight the starter could be zapping all the strength from the battery leaving nothing for good sparks.

Still cant bump start as the clutch is still stuck... but i want it running to try and resolve that

[G Force]

Hi, I would go with roperman's suggestion about the rotor arm. There are a few duff new ones around.

If you want to test the rotor arm first, remove the coil lead from the distributor cap & remove the dizzy cap, then with insulated pliers hold the coil lead 10mm away from the centre of the rotor arm whilst someone cranks the engine for you. If you get a strong spark to the centre of the rotor arm, the rotor arm is faulty.

I take it the coil lead is new when you replaced the leads? Also a good idea to check again the firing order is correct. Its too easy to get things like that leading you up the garden path

[H48HPE]

i'm going to go through all the coonections in the engine with a fine tooth comb at the weekend, I re-did all the connections at the coil on Monday night as suggested but still no luck.

I've been working away since tuesday so I'll investigate that rotor arm at the weekend, will be worth checking.

I've left it since Monday night with the cylinders filled with diesel again. I'm hoping it may free it up a bit more to get a faster cranking speed.

I'm considering isolating the starter connections from the starter and running the wiring harness at 12V with a separate pair of batteries on the starter in series to put 24V through it, on the one hand I could bugger it up, but it'll do a faster cranking speed!