77 Spider

["Wendy Wood/Carson Damm" <dammwood@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well this seemingly simple problem has me stumped. Our spider decided
not
to start during the middle of the day because of no spark. Up until this

point it has been running good with the occasional miss which of late
has
been getting more and more common. From once every twenty miles or so to

a
couple of times a mile. I pulled out the distributor to check the points

and both sets were smooth and flat with a reasonable amount of gap. Put
it
all back together correctly and tightened up two of the little do hicky
things on the top of the spark plugs that were loose. Now nada. I have
twelve volts on both sides of the coil. When one side leave the coil it
goes through some plastic plugs up to a thermal switch on the intake
manifold then down to a relay by the air oil sep. The twelve volts is
lost
in here somewhere I am pretty sure and I wasn't about to aimlessly go
jumping circuits before talking to you guys and one gal I'm sure. All my

books and stuff are still packed from our move, we don't get our house
until aug 25 then we have to build a garage, bla bla bla.... The car is
out
at the airport too. It sure looks good from a distance?.... Any ideas

Thanks Carson

Fred Di Matteo here, I waited to see what advice others might offer but
then decided you need it right away and here it is;  Your distributor
should have two sets of points if it's still stock.  There is a vacuum
switch that interupts the advanced set of points when the engine load
goes up like when you floor the gas pedal and lose vacuum. This prevents

detonation (pinging).  The vacuum switch may be hanging open so just
short the two wires at the switch to by-pass it.  Even if the dual
points are now single, bypass the vacuum switch.

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End of alfa-digest V7 #1
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