47 V8 ignition mystery

[larrys40]

Originally Posted by Seth Swoboda

www.thirdgenauto.com

844-327-5988

When you get it back, bolt it on, have fun.

Seth , Michael’s are the same. I just installed a set from him on a customer car and they cracked and are very inflexible.
In fact they are all worse than they use to be.
Larry

[Lawrie]

I,m going to male a set for my 33, 6v, Im going to use a modern 7mm set that have a tough fibre core covered by a carbon impregnated sleave,, I have tried them on the test bench and they seem fine.
I got them from summit.
Lawrie

[Old Henry]

Originally Posted by larrys40

I recently installed a set of the brown wires on a customer car. They are terrible in flexibility and yes they crack. If they are the brown wires they are the same from all the suppliers .
I’m very experience at it and they are a bear plain and simple. I’ve had an easier time doing V12’s.

I don’t know they answer for authentic brown wires unless you want to paint the ends and put the original style crimp end on packard 4-40 wire which is very flexible.
Please advise if someone has a good answer on this

Yours is the best information I've received, to know that all brown wires come from the same place and all crack the same as I've got. I will do exactly as you suggest - use the Packard 440 wire using the end connectors from my brown wire set. I'll unsolder the distributor ends from the old wire and solder them onto the new wire. I'll remove the stock sparkplug connectors from the old wire and install them on the new wire. I'll paint the exposed section of the Packard wire with brown paint to match the stock wires. Hope it works.

[Old Henry]

I know, I know, I hate this never ending story as much as anyone but I have just got to solve this mystery or die trying so I still need your help.

At least another clue has manifested itself:

Originally Posted by Als48

Craig, Is there any way to tell if your distributor cap is seating properly? I had a cap once that failed to seat correctly and it caused the exact problem you are seeing. It seemed to be cocked slightly when attached, causing the rotor to not fire two of the cylinders due to an enlarged gap at some of the inner terminals. That would also cause the rotor to be too close to some of the other terminals, which might cause the rotor to make contact and loosen the brass tip, as you have seen. Possible?

Al Hook

Originally Posted by Old Henry

I had all of those same thoughts yesterday and will check that.

So, yesterday I replaced the gasket between the distributor cap and the distributor base. My old one was in pretty bad shape - all soft and lumpy and uneven. To my great surprise that fixed my problem. I drove 9 miles up the canyon, with all 8 cylinders firing without a skip no matter what I tried to duplicate the problem, all the way to Vivian Park where I turned around and headed back. I was elated, euphoric, thrilled, happy, composing the glorious post I was going to share as my final chapter in this saga as soon as I got home, until a few blocks from home when the grim reaper phantom raised its head again with all of the same old symptoms of cylinder #6 misfiring along with some others. I was devastated. How could it be??? It certainly turned me away from a wiring problem. I couldn't figure out how all wires could function perfectly for 17 miles then fail again identically to before I straightened the distributor cap.

Any ideas?

[petehoovie]

Shot in the dark....Water spray from leaky water pump...

[Old Henry]

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Originally Posted by petehoovie

Shot in the dark....Water spray from leaky water pump...

A fair shot, but, I didn't see any water at all and the problem was the same with the cold start this morning as it was after the warmed up drive last night.

[47topless]

In my '47, I was having trouble making a good connection of the rotor to the cap. The gasket you are referring to, between the cap and distributor body, was in bad shape. It caused the cap to sit ever so slightly off on the body. I ordered a new one but, while I waited for it to arrive, I just removed the old gasket, reinstalled the cap and it solved the problem. I understand that the gasket is only there to keep water from getting in the distributor. I believe that now.
Phil

[Old Henry]

Originally Posted by 47topless

In my '47, I was having trouble making a good connection of the rotor to the cap. The gasket you are referring to, between the cap and distributor body, was in bad shape. It caused the cap to sit ever so slightly off on the body. I ordered a new one but, while I waited for it to arrive, I just removed the old gasket, reinstalled the cap and it solved the problem. I understand that the gasket is only there to keep water from getting in the distributor. I believe that now.
Phil

Before I installed the new gasket I did the same thing - took the old one out and installed the cap without a gasket. Worked great. So, I put the new gasket in and worked better than it has for over two months . . . but only for 17 miles.

I'm afraid to run without the gasket for two reasons: 1) I'm afraid the rotor end will be too high and hit the cap terminals. 2) I go through some pretty wet storms on my road trips and would hate to get any water in the cap.

[35fordtn]

If you want the correct brown wires they all from all vendors come from the same source. I recently installed a set on a 48 I feel your pain as it’s not all that easy but even though the surface convering is prone to cracking it has not presented me personally with a functionality issue

[Old Henry]

Originally Posted by Mart

While respecting your desire to keep all original, the overriding aim is to fix the problem. If you try the crab type cap and rotor and no conduits and it is then perfectly ok, you can then have more confidence when troubleshooting. You can then try and reintroduce the original parts step by step until the problem comes back. the last thing you replaced will be the problem item.

Changing the cap and leads to the crab type will be a valuable troubleshooting tool.

Temporarily changing away from stock as a diagnostic tool is not a bad thing.

I await with interest what you find.

Mart.

I'm ready to do this to test my current sparkplug wires before replacing them.

Where do I get what I need for this - the cap, the rotor, the clips and whatever else I'll need? Will the wires I now have be long enough for diagnostic operation?

[1942deluxe]

Craig, you'll need the 21A distributor cap and rotor along with plug wires. Looks like Third Gen has all of that in stock. Not sure if the 46-48 spark plug conduits will work either. You may have to route the wires another way or modify the conduits if you elect that route as a permanent solution. Believe the 42 wires are color coded. The clips would be shorter too, Michael may have them also.

[Old Henry]

Originally Posted by 1942deluxe

Craig, you'll need the 21A distributor cap and rotor along with plug wires. Looks like Third Gen has all of that in stock. Not sure if the 46-48 spark plug conduits will work either. You may have to route the wires another way or modify the conduits if you elect that route as a permanent solution. Believe the 42 wires are color coded. The clips would be shorter too, Michael may have them also.

Thanks for the info.

This will be for diagnostic only. I won't run through the conduits. When I have 9 known good wires I'll then thread them through the conduits, boots, and upper cap into the lower cap and hope it works as well.

[Old Henry]

Ok. I tossed the spark plug conduits and two part rabbit ears cap and installed a new crab cap and rotor then plugged the wires I've been using (that were suspect at one time) into the crab cap and onto the plugs. Worked great for 9 miles then the old skipping returned. I thought maybe it was because I didn't put boots/nipples on the wires where they were plugged into the distributor cap and was driving through a blinding blizzard and water was getting in and shorting. So, I left it overnight to dry good and took it out again tonight. Immediately cylinders were misfiring. Came back to the garage, put my timing light on each wire and it was the same old pattern - # 6 skipping the most, #3 next and #7 & 8 a little. So I swapped the #2 and #6 wires that are both the same length and fired it up expecting the problem to move with the wire to #2. It did not. It stayed with #6. Just in case it was the #6 sparkplug, I pulled the wire from the plug and held it near a head bolt. The skipping was coming out of the wire end - so, it's not the spark plug.

What is it?

[kiwi nz]

You have done everything except swap the distributor, at least I think so. Too many pages to go back and check, but it seems to me the whole ignition system needs work.
Starting with the distributor.
It is a long time since I have had a problem this vexing, but when I have had it has always been " the assumption, the overlooked or the misunderstood".
Guilty of them all your Honour.

[Old Henry]

So, we complete the full circle back to where I began over two months ago with my routine 10,000 maintenance replacement of the spark plugs and contact points in my distributor. The peaks on the cam were too worn down to properly set the gap on the points so I bought a Ford Authorized Remanufactured distributor from South Side Obsolete. It looked brand new but it was an older remanufacture so I installed new points and sent it to Michael at ThirdGen to check it out. He put it on his machine, adjusted the dwell and replaced the condenser and returned it to me. Just like every time I've ever tried something new, the engine ran perfect after installing that distributor . . . for a very short time. So, I bought new spark plug wires and installed them thinking my old ones must have been the problem. Again, the engine worked perfect . . . for a very short time before starting to misfire again. We suspected the coil so I removed the coil wire to the distributor, plugged in a short coil wire and put next to a head bolt - perfect. Never skipped a beat. I even replaced the coil but that made no difference. So, we went back to focusing on the new wires as being bad until tonight when I was able to switch good ones with suspected bad ones and the problem stayed with the cylinder, not the wire.

Is there anything that I haven't checked or done to the distributor that I have missed that I should do? I can't think of anything else. Please help.

[Mart]

I am sorry, but I have reached limits of my experience on this.
Let's think it through. Normally problems with a cylinder dropping out can be associated with the HT side of things. You have changed the cap and rotor and the problem still seems to be there. There can be problems with worn bushings in the distributor that can lead to a miss on one cylinder, but I have only witnessed this on a 4 cylinder with single points (not Ford).

The only thing I am not too sure about is the mention of a blizzard and also more cylinders not firing properly. Leaving it until next morning probably wouldn't allow it to dry out properly.

I don't really have anything I can suggest, you have tried most things.

Do you know anyone nearby that would be able to loan you a complete distributor and coil off a known proven good running car?

It could be that the problem lies with the carb or a vacuum leak or something like that, and all the shenanigans with the distributor have been a red herring.

I hope you can eventually get to the bottom of it and can post a positive result at some time.

Mart.

[Jack E/NJ]

Craig>>Again, the engine worked perfect . . . for a very short time before starting to misfire again.>>>>same old pattern - # 6 skipping the most, #3 next and #7 & 8 a little.>>>


Mart>>>It could be that the problem lies with the carb or a vacuum leak or something like that, and all the shenanigans with the distributor have been a red herring.>>>




Firing order with emphasis on problem cylinders

1-5-4-8-6-3-7-2

[47topless]

Originally Posted by kiwi nz

You have done everything except swap the distributor, at least I think so. Too many pages to go back and check, but it seems to me the whole ignition system needs work.
Starting with the distributor.
It is a long time since I have had a problem this vexing, but when I have had it has always been " the assumption, the overlooked or the misunderstood".
Guilty of them all your Honour.

Great advice. This, you need to do. From a personal perspective, at my age (75) my time has become much more valuable than my money.
I recently had a vexing problem with my newly rebuilt distributor that just could not be solved. I purchased a new rebuild from Gen 3, bolted it on and off I went. PROBLEM SOLVED!!!.
Good Luck

[BoGu]

In post 31 you mentioned a smashed plug.
This brings up some memories about a weird plug failure. Probably don't explain what you have but anyway;



Once upon a time a i had a Simca 1100 special (4-cyl 1300cc engine) that had a weird ignition fault.
It was running on 3 cylinders on and off.
I checked which cylinder out by lifting spark plug wire one by one.
The engine bogged down running on only two cylinders when lifting any of cyl 1 ,2 or no 3 wires. But when lifting cyl no 4 wire, a little, it suddenly fired up on all 4 cylinders! What?!
It turned out to be a faulty sparkplug.


My opinion over what happened:

The plug must had some internal isolator fault that the normal high tension voltage flashed over. But when the plug wire was lifted a little, there was a flash in air from wire end to plug terminal. It takes some voltage to create this flash so the voltage stress on the plug decreases accodingly The high tension voltage is shared by this air spark in series with the plug gap/ isolator fault and apparently the voltage stress in the plug decreased so it jumped over plug gap as it should, and not over the isolator fault, and the engine ran fine.
The isolator fault could have been an internal crack or a porcelain impurity.

[Old Henry]

Originally Posted by Jack E/NJ

Firing order with emphasis on problem cylinders

1-5-4-8-6-3-7-2

I recognized this pattern long ago which suggested a cock-eyed distributor cap. I removed the old worn gasket and installed the cap without one just to be sure it was absolutely flat. Again, it worked perfect . . . for a very short time when the old missing pattern returned. Now I've got all new crab cap with same old missing pattern.

What else could that pattern suggest?