Re: Ian's mysterious stalling

["Jay Mackro" <jmackro@domain.elided>]

ian evans had written:

>Today in stop and go traffic the car suddenly died...  
> No missing sputtering etc.
>Never did it before.  Runs fine for another hour then suddenly dies
>while driving in 4th at around 3000 rpm.  I'm leaning towards 
> electrical problem in the ignition circuit, but if it's going to be 
> intermittent like this it'll be a bear to trace.  

Yea, I would guess electrical / ignition too.  If it were fuel-related,
such as an intermittant connection to the fuel pump, your engine
still wouldn't die suddenly.  You may have provided a clue, when 
you noted that the second time it died, it wouldn't restart until you 
switched the ignition off, then on.  Perhaps the ignition switch 
itself has become flakey.  

These things ARE hard to diagnose.  My strategy would be to
inspect all underhood ignition connections carefully.  You
might try wiggling the key while it's running, to see if that will
trigger a failure.  A less satisfactory means of debugging it
would be to just hotwire the coil - run a wire from the battery
to the + lead - drive normally (well, except for having to open
the hood to start and stop the engine!) - and see if it
continues to fail.  How are the internal bits in your distributor?
Any chance that the points-to-coil wire, or the condensor 
(yes, I know it's really a capacitor) are worn?

Good luck!

Jay Mackro

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