Thread: Dizzy issues...

Going by your description, the lead at the dizzy cap end is secured with a screw from inside the cap.

Find someone who sells the old copper HT leads & fit those. You may need to by the lead in a lenght & fit your own spark plug terminals.
The silicon ones work for a while but break down quicker due to the screw damaging the inner core.

Any Vintage specialist would have the old type leads or you could get some from www.vinwire.com.au
They'll have the lead, terminals & boots you need.

Try Gary Gjerde at CLR 02 4754 2642 / 0412 663 751.

Peter

Originally Posted by Epsom

Surely, I am not the first person to encounter this problem?

Correct - you are not. I, too, ended up with one of those caps and almost the exact same situation. The only difference being that my new leads didn't come from Britparts - I had already purchased them from SuperCheapAuto.

So - I purchased a different distributer cap as no-one here in Canberra seemed able to help when I went looking for 'old style' wired leads.

My cap came off a 1968 Mini distributer and looks like a dead ringer for the original one that came off the landy - which is not surprising as the early Minis shared quite a few of the same Lucas parts with Land Rover.

When questioned about it, the crowd I had purchased the 'other' cap from looked it up in their books and discovered that, indeed, the landys had several differently styled caps.

Some auto-electricians may have a roll of the 'wire' leads in a corner somewhere - it may be as simple as ringing around. Most garages won't have any, though. I would concentrate on the auto-leckies.

I think I have some of the screw on plug ends in the shed if you could use them. Let me know if you are still having problems and I'll go find them.

Originally Posted by Epsom

Can you help? I received this from my mate who has a 1963 "ish" 2.25 litre petrol Landy (named Larry) on his farm....

"Larry has been nigh on impossible to start' and runs with a lot of backfiring carry on, and not enough power to traverse the slightest incline.

I decided to remove each spark plug lead one at a time and found that one removal did not make any difference. I thought 'big' and changed all of the spark plugs with a terrific improvement.

Shortly after the spark plug replacement it carried on something atrocious again. I hounded it down to 2 spark leads touching each other. I decided to replace the dull pitted Lucas distributor cover and a get a new set of leads. The garage had a cover in stock and had to order in the lead set. The lead set was from 'Brittish Parts' and was useless...no...'uber' useless.

The leads can not possibly be used unless they are clamped in with the required bakelite bush which screws in to each lead point on the distributor cover. This is because the 'contact' "down the hole" has a button or point which is surrounded with insulation. A round cylindrical spring tube, connection like the spark plug connector offered for the distributor cap end of the lead, can not be used in the distributor cap. It needs, instead, a thing that pushes the lead down the hole to clamp against the little button or contact point at the bottom of the hole. A spring tube or cylinder will just vibrate away from the contact point or button and make a very poor connection.

So, most, if not all leads today are bigger diameter with wonderful silicon sheathing. Next they are not filled with a wire for pushing on to the 'button'. Instead they are filled with inferior radio noise suppressing carbon/cotton.

On the farm, radio suppression is not needed; wire works best. The silicon sheathing would be great to stop 'cross firing' when they touch each other.

The garage will not look any further.

Surely, I am not the first person to encounter this problem?

Can you please help me get something better than I have, and yet truly Land Rover compatible?

Thanks for that Sideroad, will pass it on. cheers, Epsom.