Stag cut out in traffic

[floyd]

Hi All, was out in the Stag tonight and as I pulled up to a width restriction it cut out and refused to restart.
There was plenty of petrol, pump ticking and lots in the filter.
The battery's pretty new and was turning the engine over fine, it just wouldn't catch as if there was no spark.
Looked at the coil lt and ht wires and all seemed fine, checked the points hadn't seized but everything was fine.
I gave up at this point and called the RAC, they said they'd get to me in 90mins so after 10mins I was bored and had another go at starting it, to my surprise it started fine so I zipped home and cancelled the RAC.
Does anyone have any idea what might have caused it, my own thoughts are maybe it's a dodgy condenser or coil.
Thanks,
Floyd.
PS the cars only just gone back on the road after an 8 year layup but has done 150 miles with no problems.

[whereufromnosecity]

imported post

Floyd

I had a similar problem with last month after finishing the back end rebuild, was only off the road for a couple of months

The symptoms were the same, cutting out then would start again straight away then cut out again, i ended putting the coil at fault so changed it and no difference, turned out to be a brake in the wire from my electronic ignition to the coil, which i found by having a good wriggle of the wires

So i would start by checking the wiring and connections, and may be look at swapping over to electronic ignition

Stu E

[kstar]

imported post

Hi,

I too had a similar issue and it was also caused by a dodgy connection on the ignition wire. One way to test is to connect the positive connection of the battery to the coil - this will bypass the ignition wiring.
After starting turning the ignition key off won't stop the engine so you would need to disconnect the connection to the battery.

[Thurlo Squire]

imported post

kstar wrote:

One way to test is to connect the positive connection of the battery to the coil - this will bypass the ignition wiring.

This is OK as a short term test but if your car has a 6v coil with ballast resistor then you will risk burning the coil out if you run it like with the wire connected.

Nigel

[stustag]

imported post

Hi

I once had a very similar problem with my 2500TC and it was found to be the points welding themselves together when hot. If you still have points how old are they? I would either file the face of the points or replace them.

The suggestions that it might be one of the ignition wires is also a very valid cause.

Stuart

[SwissSteve]

imported post

I had exactly the same on Saturday. Car pulled away and then just died.

Mine was a stupid thing. The coil had dropped down in its holder and one of the coil leads was shorting on the metal pipe behind.

Lifting it up and all was fine. Hope yours turns out to be as simple.

[grahamb]

imported post

Mine did something like this when I first had it - it turned out to be the HT leads.

Graham

[Gresley]

imported post

I have had a carb air valve stick which caused just this - running fine, pull up to traffic lights and it wouldn't start.I think the vibration from trying to start it must have jarred the valve free as it started soon after.

Brian

[stagerme]

imported post

Hi Floyd

I recently had a simliar problem and it was the fuel pump cut off switch,I took the switch out and took it apart,inside is a metal ball that was corroded I cleaned this up with some wire wool and it seems to have solved the problem,worth looking at,Cheers Cliff

[floyd]

imported post

Thanks everyone, with a bit of further investigation in the daylight I discovered that the car has had electronic ignition at some point in it's life and when a previous owner removed it they seem to have made up their own LT leads in various thickness's of wire with random ring terminals one with 2 wires into it all of which looked very iffy. So I've replaced the wiring and terminals with something more suitable and hopefully wired things up as they should be (found an image on stagwiki of the inside of a distributor to copy!)
Been for a 1/2 hour blast this morning and all seems well,
Thanks again,
Floyd.

[StagnJag]

imported post

floyd wrote:

Thanks everyone, with a bit of further investigation in the daylight I discovered that the car has had electronic ignition at some point in it's life and when a previous owner removed it they seem to have made up their own LT leads in various thickness's of wire with random ring terminals one with 2 wires into it all of which looked very iffy. So I've replaced the wiring and terminals with something more suitable and hopefully wired things up as they should be (found an image on stagwiki of the inside of a distributor to copy!)
Been for a 1/2 hour blast this morning and all seems well,
Thanks again,
Floyd.

If you copied the image on Stagwiki, then you had better hope my car is wired up correctly:P. I'm glad someone is finding the site useful!

Cheers

Dave