Ignition woes

[022Dave]

An update to my ignitions woes; After changing nearly every part of the ignition system I was still being plagued by the hot fault and was ready to throw in the towel and ask a Stag specialist to diagnose the fault.
Then a thought struck me - the only part of the 'system' I hadn't considered was the ballast wire built into the loom on my Mk2 car, could a length of resistance wire possibly be the cause of an intermittent hot fault?

During my fault finding one of the things I changed was the ignition coil and a new ballast resistor was supplied with it, so I fished it out and fitted it in place of the ballast wire. The car started as normal and so far I've taken the car on a 20 mile round trip during which time I would have expected the hot fault to manifest itself and it hasn't!!
At this time I'm cautiously optimistic and need to rebuild my confidence by taking the car on some longer journeys before I can say its been cured, but so far so good.
Who'd have thought a bit of wire could be the cause of such a bizarre fault?

My resistance wire failed a few years ago while driving to work (complete roadside breakdown, not an intermittent fault), and the breakdown truck took me 20 miles to Enginuity, where Tony Hart diagnosed it almost immediately. I've always carried spare electronic ignition modules etc., but wasn't any use on that day!

Dave

[Klaus Schlueter]

Is it correct that the size of the ballast resistor in the wire is 1,4 Ohm? And does it make sence to swap from the wire resistor to a seperate unit? Fault diagnostic and changing the faulty one with a new one might be easier on a long holiday trip? Any thoughts from the electric experts?
Klaus

[Ritchie6]

I don't have any personal experience of Luminition, but I have heard on here about a connector block that can often get corroded causing ignition problems. That might be worth a look at first before spending any more!

Rgds

Dave

My car has a Lumenition unit fitted by the previous owner and to be honest I know nothing about it so any bits of info I'm picking up on here is very interesting. I come from the era when it was only points and condensors and although they did need some attention I've never been left at the roadside unable to get home whereas if the electronic gadget packs up then you've got a problem

Richard

[mole42]

Who'd have thought a bit of wire could be the cause of such a bizarre fault?

Unfortunately, many owners of 1970's British cars found the same to their cost - that resistance wire proved quite unreliable. Well done for your perseverence in flushing it out!!