Not running

[SCOTMCDOT]

Right, about a month ago the Rocco broke down up the road. After a few days the police came round as someone had complained about it so i left it there a bit longer to piss them off a wee bit.

However last week i brought it home. Would not fire up and when a friend was turning it over i noticed the earth was sparking. So i replaced the earth and now have an earth to the suspension mount and another to the engine block so its pretty much earthed as well as it can be (have lost the bolt to where it is normally earthed). However the problem did not go away.

Checked the dizzy cap and the rotor arm was fubar. So got a new arm and dizzy cap. Seemed like success, as the car fired up straight away but the next morning same problem. It seems like the car is over fuelling and backfiring. Timing is slightly out (i have arsed about with it ever so slightly when i has been running and its pretty much spot on but not done it with the gun yet), but not enough to stop it running. The plugs and leads are almost new and even if one had gone it would not stop the car starting and would be noticable when it was misfiring when running.

Next step is an actual dizzy, but thought i would chuck it out here first. Does anyone have any ideas? I have a pierberg carb on it so it could be that but i am not so sure.

If someone could take a photo of the plug order on the dizzy cap it would be appreciated, as whilst it ran first time after i changed the cap and i have never knick knacked that up before, i would like to put my mind at rest. If it is that i will have to give up on cars fullstop.

I really am at a loss of what else it can be.

Ta, Scotty

[Brunty]

The firing order is 1-3-4-2, so just trace the leads back.

Try squirting some easy start or similar down the carb when trying to start. The problem could be one of a few things so you'll need to have a fiddle to nail it down.

Have you made sure that fuel is flowing to the carb properly? Take the fuel line off, pop it in a jar and crank the engine. It's a mechanical fuel pump with a diaphragm inside which can go porous, so they've got a life expectancy anyway.

Could be water in the fuel.

Are you stomping on the throttle when cranking? Just a small press or none at all should start the engine.

[MikeH]

If you take the spark plugs out, are they black and sooty?

You may well have pierburg autochoke problems, and I'm no expert on those, but I hear that some of them do work quite well :D

If you've got a consistent spark (check with a timing light or by taking each plug out, sticking it back in the lead, and lying it back on the rocker cover to earth the body of it) then the distributor probably isn't your problem.

All the other stuff that Brunty mentioned is possible, but do the simple stuff first - check for a spark, check the condition of the plugs, roughly check the timing at static.