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Gufshoz · 02-01-2012, 02:01 PM

I'm a new member to this website and I checked the threads, but I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for. I acquired (talked my brothers out of it) a '31 Model A coupe that father bought in 1944. Last week my dad and I were driving her after installing a new ignition switch and she was purring right along. After about 5 miles I stopped at a store for about 10 min. and shut her off. I couldn't get her restarted until discovering the new switch had a screw which shorted-out against the dash. I tried to restart and MAJOR backfire. From that point she would only cough and sputter. I though the timing may have been knocked off, so I re-timed to the manual; no luck. I have a new style distributor and I loosened the rotor and advanced a few degrees and it was a little better. I over did it, so I retarded a little. I kept doing this, but couldn't ever locate the "sweet spot". While I was doing this, I noticed the distributor had about 2-4 degrees of rotational play. Is this normal or did I do some damage with all the backfiring?

02-01-2012, 02:01 PM	#1
Gufshoz Member Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Gulf Shores, AL Posts: 80	Ignition confused noobie. I'm a new member to this website and I checked the threads, but I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for. I acquired (talked my brothers out of it) a '31 Model A coupe that father bought in 1944. Last week my dad and I were driving her after installing a new ignition switch and she was purring right along. After about 5 miles I stopped at a store for about 10 min. and shut her off. I couldn't get her restarted until discovering the new switch had a screw which shorted-out against the dash. I tried to restart and MAJOR backfire. From that point she would only cough and sputter. I though the timing may have been knocked off, so I re-timed to the manual; no luck. I have a new style distributor and I loosened the rotor and advanced a few degrees and it was a little better. I over did it, so I retarded a little. I kept doing this, but couldn't ever locate the "sweet spot". While I was doing this, I noticed the distributor had about 2-4 degrees of rotational play. Is this normal or did I do some damage with all the backfiring?