Date:         Tue, 1 Aug 1995 09:45:55 MST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Mike White" <MIKE.WHITE@law.utah.edu>
Subject:      D'oh!  Running on Three!

Well,

I put my '67 bus down in the local out of business gas station parking 
lot to attract potential buyers (Yes you who are reading this 
message want to buy my bus for a good deal!), and wouldn't you 
know it.  I get three calls from people all wanting to meet at the 
same time there!

So one of the guys is a major mechanic and is fiddling with the 
distributor.  

Naturally as the Murphy's laws of auto-sales states:  Everything will 
go wrong when you go to sell your car.

I noticed that the coil is arcing to the negative terminals from the 
center.  The wires are all new, and the mechanic guy points out that 
the coil is probably cracked.  

He then starts pulling wires from the distributor to check each 
cylinder, and notices that number 4 is not even firing!  

This explains why it has been running so hot on me lately.  I am 
surprised by how well it runs compared to a normal 4-banger when 
running on three.

I am going to check it out today.

Could the cracked coil be causing only one cyliner not to fire?  The 
arc seems to happen randomly, not in sync with the engine.

Thanks!

BTW,  they were drooling on my '57 23-win when I pulled up in it.  I 
told one guy $6500 and he said he'd think about it!  :)

- Mike White 

[Mail: mike.white@law.utah.edu   -   mwhite@eng.utah.edu]
[http://www.cc.utah.edu/~mw1759/index.html]