So my green 69 Riv GS was giving me grief. Started on the way to and from the spring meet. Started out as an intermittent shudder at idle. Almost felt like the car was going to turn off like a light with my foot on the brake. Took the car out again last week and the problem got worse. Shudder at idle is worse and under load there is a massive misfire. Feels like a plug wire is off. Definitely an ignition problem, no doubt about it First thing I noticed was the plastic around the ignition coil terminals is all cracked. Whats up with that? I had a repro "202" Delco coil in stock. Threw that it. No difference but the cracking was definitely no good! Next up is a examination of the distributor . The breaker plate feels loose. A lot of up/ down play. No side to side but it shouldn't move like that. Took the distributor apart and found a worn lower bushing and the distributor shaft had corresponding grooves in it. So bad that my nail catches it. Some side to side play too. No good! It was the wrong casting number anyway. It was a 1112109. Went into the "parts dept" and found a crusty 1111335- a correct 69 430 dist! Took it completely apart and cleaned everything in mineral spirits. Blew it dry, soldered a new ground wire to the breaker plate, greased it all up and put a new set of Blue Streak points and condenser in it. Dropped it back in and set the dwell. Idled sooooo much better. Shudder was gone but we still had the misfire under load. Took a couple of plugs out and they looked fine. Not even worn. But I decided to throw a set of plugs in it anyway. That was it. No more miss. Car runs better than ever. All the plugs looked fine too. Odd. Tomorrow the Riv gets its long overdue oil change and bath!
Nothing beats the satisfaction of spending a day chasing down gremlins and conquering every one of them, amirite?
I love diagnosing stuff like that. Drove it all over on Sunday and its definitely fixed. Runs better than ever.
And nothing worse than fixing an electrical gremlin and not knowing what you did to fix it, loose and broken connections come to mind. Especially the ones you can feel and not see. Move some wires and the problem goes away until it comes back and you don't know which one was responsible.
I looked at them but not too closely. I did save them. Why I have no idea. Maybe I'll take a second look at them. And btw, those repro "GM restoration parts" coils are total crap. Someone needs to have a heart to heart with that 12 year old Chinese girl making those things. Car started acting up when it got hot afterwards. I took the repro Delco Remy out and put in a good used original back in it. I thin the car is straightened out now. I gave it an extended test drive and it ran like normal...finally
