Re:Points?

["Leslie J. Singh" <Les.Singh@domain.elided>]

>To all,
>I finally finished changing out my water pump and now the car will not
>start, only backfires so loud that it sounds like a gunshot. I also changed
>out the plugs, wires, cap , rotor, fuel filter, but did not do anything with
>the points. Will a maladjustment of the points cause this problem? I was
>talking to a guy at work and he advised to check out the vacuum that is
>attached to the spark advance. He was talking theory to me and I am not sure
>if this applies to my 80 spider, does it make sense to ya'll? I anxiously
>await your response, as I hope to get this puppy on the road this week.
>Thanks,
>Pat Crawford
>Dallas

Pat

If everything was working ok before, then the points. condensor,coil, plugs 
are likely to be ok. The clue is that the engine backfires and will not 
start: these are classic symptoms of serious mis-timing. I think that the 
plug wires (HT wires) have got crossed up when you changed them so the 
ignition is trying to fire the wrong cylinders. To fix:
1. Get the engine on TDC on #1 ("P" mark aligned with pointer and #1 con 
compression stroke)
2. Take the distributor cap off and see where the rotor is pointing to. 
That position is where the #1 wire should go on the distributor cap.
3. Now get all the other wires in correct firing sequence - remember :the 
rotor turns clockwise.

Have had a lot of practice at this lately with a competition engine in 
which the rotor turns anti-clockwise. Guess who was retarding the ignition 
and getting firing order wrong because he is so used to working on Alfas 
and not stoopid Fords??!!

Les
Back in the world of Alfa after 5 months of competing in the National FF 
Championship
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