<VV> help - flooding

[FrankCB at aol.com]

This reminds me of my list of things to check learned many years ago (the  
hard way).  When something goes wrong don't check the most likely first,  
check the EASIEST-to-fix first, the go down the list checking the next 
EASIEST,  then the next, so that the hardest stuff to fix occur at the END of your  
list.  You don't want to spend hours checking the hardest stuff when you  
should check the "10 minute fix" stuff FIRST.
Generally, the electrical stuff is the easiest to check first.  If you  put 
a ohmeter (DVM or digital volt meter is the common name now) on the 
ignition  coil it should read low ohms (1 to a few) on the primary and a few 
thousand ohms  on the secondary.  Sometimes the coil reads fine when it is ambient 
 temp. but at higher operating temp. the secondary might show  an INFINITE 
ohm reading.  That indicates a BAD coil when it gets hot  from operating the 
engine for a while.
Intermittent problems are the worst to solve.  Many years ago when I  
rebuilt the carbs on "Joe Cool" (1966 95 hp with PG and A/C) I noticed on hard  
right turns the engine would briefly "cut out" then return when the car  
straightened out.  Of course, it had to be a carb problem since I had just  
rebuilt them to solve an off idle problem (which it did).  I delayed the  fix 
(all that work to repeat) until one morning the intermittent problem  
FORTUNATELY turned into a PERMANENT problem and the car would simply not  start.  
Now the problem was much easier to find and fix.  On the 66  with A/C the coil 
is located back up against the back panel of the engine  compartment and 
the wire from the points to the coil passes by a bracket located  to the LEFT 
of the wire.  On a hard RIGHT turn the wire moved LEFT and  contacted the 
bracket grounding out the electric current from the points to  the coil 
through the bad old insulation on the wire.  As soon as the car  went straight 
again, the wire moved back and the ground was gone.  It was a  simple matter to 
insulate the wire until it could be replaced with a newer  one which solved 
the problem.
So before you start working on the carbs, make sure the ignition system is  
operating correctly.
 
Frank "learning over time" Burkhard   
 
 
In a message dated 7/13/2011 8:03:52 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
cityhawk at sprint.blackberry.net writes:

This  talk about apparent flooding and weak spark reminds me of the time 
many years  ago when the straight six in my 1963 International Travelall 
wouldn't start  and a trusted mechanic friend spent a long time chasing down what 
looked like  a flooding problem when it turned out the coil was bad. 

Karl in  Boston
www.chezhawk.com/VairBlog.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone  with SprintSpeed
_______________________________________________
This  message was sent by the VirtualVairs mailing list, all copyrights are 
the  property
of the writer, please attribute properly. For help,  
mailto:vv-help at corvair.org
This list sponsored by the Corvair Society of  America, 
http://www.corvair.org/
Post messages to:  VirtualVairs at corvair.org
Change your options:  
http://www.vv.corvair.org/mailman/options/virtualvairs  
_______________________________________________