points
Hi, thanks Liam, yes the points are brand new as is the condensor, rotor arm , cap and leads. The thing i need to get i think is most certainly a dwell meter.
The vacum works fine, i have checked that.
When i got the van it had only done 3000 miles and interestingly had an in-line brass insert in the vacum advance pipe, the insert had a very tiny hole drilled in it.
uncertain of why this was there i checked with a main dealer in 1987 and they informed me that it was a renault modification to reduce the advance, and was introduced to reduce pinking, if a customer complained.
With the modification inplace the advance is not so great, but is still quite strong.
Where the vacum advance lever attatches to the baseplate of the distributor there is an eccentric lobe with teeth on, it is secured with a circlip, now when the van reached 130,000 miles(52,000) miles ago the circlip and eccentric gear became detatched. i did re-attatch it, but as i have no other 4F6 or 4gtl to examine i do not know what tooth the gear was on and took my best guess!. Obviously this is quite important as the toothed gear creates the standing tension on the whole of the vacum advance and obviously if the tension is too great theres not enough Vacum advance, too low and there is too much. I have set it at a level which does not cause pinking, but it did use to pink in the summer even with the Renault Mod so it is obviously not correct.
This is one of the reasons why i am on the look out for another Dizzy (i have contacted you already about maybe one next week Liam).
I think it is fair to say that at 183,000 miles the distributor is probably going anyway, as is the carb.
I, like another member that i have read about, can screw the mixture screw hard in and it has little effect on the way the engine runs, several months ago it would have caused the engine to hunt and stall. so that is obviously not working correctly.
When everything is set correctly as the handbook says, the engine is 'lumpy, like as though something is imbalanced on normal acceleration in any gear, to get rid of this lumpiness i have to retard the ignition to a level that makes the van more like a milk float!.
You can see the lumpiness on the engine by just gradually speeding the engine up from tickover, it's almost as though it is firing on 3 and a half cylinders at around 2-3000 rpm, once retarded to an abnormal level it disappears. I can also get rid of it by advancing it to an abnormal level, but that just causes excessive pinking.
There is no misfire at tickover or any other condition, and she starts instantly, no matter how cold a morning, or whatever the ignition is set on.This is a strange one, and i'm hoping another dizzy and carb will make a difference. Ian
