What did you do today?

[Nibblet]

Got in the Datty this afternoon, it was dry so I thought I'd warm the car up, have a little pootle about and scrape the rust off the brakes.
Got about 1/4 mile up the road and stops dead. Starter turns over but nothing. At least I'm in the lane and not on the main road, especially as plod might have come along and started asking where I was going. Fuel is reading very low and I'm on a hill. I walk back to my garage, get in Saab and go and fill up a Jerry can. Well that does nowt, so I tip a little straight in carb, nothing. Bollocks. I've got a socket set in back of Datty which has a plug socket, I phone a mate and he comes by and helps turn the engine over, no spark at the plugs.
Must be the coil- it is still on it's original one, I have a new Bosch one in my garage, has no effect. I whip off the distributor cap, big fat spark at the points. So it's either the rotor arm or the cap. They are both near new.
I get to thinking about the rotor arm and how the new one was different looking. I pop off the new rotor arm and put it back on again, the replace the distributor cap; she starts first turn of the key.....OK.
Go back to my lair and dig out the old rotor arm. The old rotor arm is on the right, it has no steel rivets holding the brass arm to the plastic, it's just glued on. Now I reckon the upper of the two rivets on the new rotor arm passes very close to the top of the spindle of the distributor, when the rotor is pushed down firmly onto it. And you do have to push the newer arm down tighter than the old one, so I wondered if the new arm had a hairline crack exposing that rivet to the top of the distributor shaft. Well, I took the distributor cap off, held the coil lead about 1/4" away from it and got my mate to spin the engine over a few times. One time a wee spark leapt from the coil lead to the rotor arm, which should be insulated from earth. That I think is the answer.

[SiC]

Ah yes. The riveted rotor arms. Bain of most classic British cars reliability when they cause a short on the dizzy body. Thankfully Lucas style distributor arms without the rivets are easily come by now.

Do Hitachi still make genuine rotor arms for it?

[Nibblet]

Ah yes. The riveted rotor arms. Bain of most classic British cars reliability when they cause a short on the dizzy body. Thankfully Lucas style distributor arms without the rivets are easily come by now.

Do Hitachi still make genuine rotor arms for it?

The replacement was old stock Lucas, the old one looks like a Bosch logo on it. Hitachi and other Jap parts are readily swappable for British stuff.

[Nibblet]

I will dissect the offending article and see just how close the rivet is to the hollow.

[Nibblet]

Ah ha! It is a Hitachi logo, I don't know whether replacements are available.

[SiC]

Ah ha! It is a Hitachi logo, I don't know whether replacements are available.

Yes, hence:

Do Hitachi still make genuine rotor arms for it?

Channelling my inner Eddie Honda here by instantly recognising that logo on the rotor arm.

[Eddie Honda]

Channelling my inner Eddie Honda here by instantly recognising that logo on the rotor arm.

mechagodzilla.gif (610.2 KiB) Viewed 2483 times

You can see that Hitachi did a proper job of attaching the conductor to the arm.

Do Hitachi still make genuine rotor arms for it?

Wouldn't have thought so, but here's a NOS Hitachi arm in a Honda bag:

hitachi_4461-2600B_1.jpg (230.85 KiB) Viewed 2483 times

hitachi_4461-2600B_2.jpg (187.67 KiB) Viewed 2483 times

https://www.ebay.com/itm/131579070923

You just have to keep 'em peeled and hoard them.

[Hooli]

I put the throttle bodies back on my 14 earlier.

I must have got something right as it runs ok again. The fast idle was still way too high, so as I knew everything was ok this time I adjusted the fast idle screw - the Suzuki workshop manual says not to do this as it's factory set. Fast idle seems ok now & it drops to normal idle in about right sort of time unlike previously with the faulty oil sensor.

I didn't bother test riding it as I also sorted the brakes on a friend's bike that's here. Nice easy one that, just pop the calipers off, clean everything up as they were sticking on their sliding pins, regrease it properly & refit them.

[AMCrebel]

Watched some of this guy's stuff

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6JPmJ ... XPWr3EvJnw

It was really funny because I'd wondered ages ago if I could maybe create some of the unobtainable panels I need by welding metal into the required shapes - but I'd discounted it. The I became aware of shrinker/stretchers and thought that was the answer - but as he points out, it'd be hard to do some of the complex repair sections with a shrinker/stretcher as they have too much variation in a single area (he does a video on a 1972 Chevy rear window channel section).

[red5]

Removed this, in the pissing rain and sub zero temps.