Re: alfa-digest V8 #68 - distributor diagnosis

[AlfaNeely@domain.elided]

       Find a new repair shop.  There is nothing inside the 84 Bosch spider 
distributor to break.  All that is inside the distributor is a shaft with a 
rotor glued to the end and a cap.  All spark timing advance and control to 
the coil is done my the computer.
       I guess a high mileage Alfa could wear out the bushings in which the 
distributor shaft turns.  Otherwise, there is nothing to break.
       Put a timing light on the car.  Timing lights are cheap.  There is no 
easy way on a Bosch spider to adjust the timing.  However, the timing light 
will tell you if you have advance or not.
 
       Or your ignition computer may be gone.  APE asked me $250 for one.  I 
found one on eBay for less.
       However, the Bosch computers are not normally the problem.  We checked 
everything out in my Alfa spider and finally pulled the computer from my 
street racer.  One computer works, the other does not.  So my computer died, 
but then the idiot driver drove the race car into a cement retaining wall at 
Heartland Park in Topeka.

      You can replace the whole crankfired ignition, computer and distributor 
with an earlier "points" type distributor.  By "points" I mean a distributor 
with a method of breaking the current flow to the coil and an advance 
mechanism built it.

       If you have spark, I would say it is not the computer.  And as I said 
at the outset, there is nothing to break inside your distributor.

Ciao,
Russ Neely
Oklahoma City


In a message dated 09/21/2001 12:07:05 PM Central Daylight Time, 
owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided writes:


> Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 12:24:10 -0400
> From: "Douglas Kunzman" <doug.kunzman@domain.elided>
> Subject: distributor diagnosis
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I just got one of my alfa's back from the shop were they diagnosed the
> distributor being
> broken and worn out on one of my Alfa Spiders (1984 with 150,000 miles).  I
> was pretty sure
> that it was a ignition problem and had replaced the plugs, wires, cap and
> rotor to no avail.
> Is there anyway for an amateur to diagnose that the distributor is bad
> without very specialized
> tools ?
> 
> Doug K
> 2 84 Alfa Spiders
> 1 Truck to move alfa engines

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