The culprit that ruin Brighton Breeze for me

[Rippers]

On the morning of Hook Park started the van drove about 30ft it cut out then refused to start.

Thought I'd maybe flooded the engine but the bugger wouldn't start. My missus was giving me hell for not letting the van warm up lol..
To the engine compartment I went.. could smell fuel, diagnosed it had no spark and lucky had my Gunson timing gun with me and tested it all the way up to the coil and no spark in the leads. So thought it was the coil, managed to get a coil from a really nice guy in a yellow/grey split who was in the convoy ready to leave.. Tried it no good so had to guess it was the dizzy, I had my multimeter and I had switched 12v at the coil so it had to be the dizzy, cleaned it up, no cracks looked fine..
Only choice I had was to try and scrounge a set of points and a condenser to try and see if it was the electronic ignition at fault and luckily the same guy in the split not only had the points and condenser he also had the little screw that holds the condenser on the dizzy!

By this time the convoy was leaving.. This picture should give even the most heartless person a tear in their eye lol

Anyway after a load of dicking around got the points and condenser on and the van tried to start so we had spark hurrah! But it wouldn't start and after a few goes the wiring started smoking so thought we would leave it a while and called the RAC

Guy from the RAC arrives in 30mins!!

He basically diagnosed at this point the timing was out and the points needed gaping... Feeler gauge out and Gunson timing gun on the go and we where up and running.. And finally left Hook Park at 11:30

So the culprit was this bugger

Of all the times to go just before the convoy leaves.. Thanks to the guy in the yellow/grey split for the parts.. I caught up with him later and wouldn't take a penny from me

We arrived sooo late at Brighton Breeze it was a nightmare and a tad embarrassing driving through the crowds which went on and on and ended up parking beyond the line ups and on our own.. The walk to the main area felt like miles!

Only go thing about where we ended up was the writing on the road..

Hopefully BB 2014 will be lot better!

 

[Resto-raider]

I can imagine that it was annoying at the time, but at least you didn't arrive on a towtruck.

 

[Rippers]

Yeah I guess but at least the RAC would have paid the fuel home lol

 

[aogrady]

Hi,

What a shame...

Glad that you managed to get going, nice to see there are good people offering to help out a fellow vee dubber.

Do you know what brand the electronic module was? Are you gonna stick with points now?! there was a thread on here about electronic v points, a few people have mentioned keeping spares etc, but to be honest you could have a failure even if you kept the og points system, in therory the electronic should be more reliable, though if the points were changed often, then maybe the same reliabilty?

Me, personally, I have a Pertronix, fit and forgot - though i did buy a spare brand new dizzy on ebay, was only £30 - but where does it end? Spare coil, carb, leads, fuel filter, fan belt..... :roll:

Nowt worse than turning up late and folk staring at you when you trundle by......

Cheers,

Alistair

 

[Rippers]

I'm really not sure what to do.

Going to pull the engine out Wednesday and do the valves, double check the timing, oil change and clean it up

It doesn't feel as smooth or as powerful as it did before, it also sounds different too especially in the higher rev range :?

 

[lcfmonkey]

If it's any consolation, I remember walking the entire length of the line up and then seeing your bus right at the end, and thinking "I hope mine looks like that when it's done!"

Glad you made it in then end and hope that your drive home was uneventful.

 

[Rippers]

If it's any consolation, I remember walking the entire length of the line up and then seeing your bus right at the end, and thinking "I hope mine looks like that when it's done!"

Glad you made it in then end and hope that your drive home was uneventful.

Thanks mate.. I'm like that when I see myvanway's van

Trip back was fine other then the van making strange noises above 3500 revs so took it easy. going to look at the timing again wednesday

 

[bluenose]

that eletronic ignition does look particuarly cheap and nasty.

I agree with the other poster never had any troubles with the petronix product

 

[Rippers]

It was on the engine when It came over from the US so I guess it was going to be a matter of time.

I had a conversation with Laurie Pettitt about the timing and the RAC guy had timed it to 30 degree BDTC at idle.. which would explain the strange noises the engine was making when being pushed.. LP said I was lucky I didn't melt a piston on the way home is it was pinking that much..

These Aircooled engines don't half through you in the deep end :lol: you have to learn fast!

I'm going to put a accuspark electronic ignition on it this time

 

[Myvanway]

Gutted for you,
I have electric set up now with no issues as yet... although its not running great!
Let us know how the fix goes and hope to catch up next season for a chat.

Paul.

 

[Humphrey]

Not to worry mate there's always another show. Lovely bus you have there BTW!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk