Houston We Have Ignition

It has been a while since my last post and and my issues have led to a lot of head scratching.

Despite using enough easystart to create an IRD we have still not managed to get the engine running. My mechanic friend advised that the car should start with easystart so long as there was spark but we have had no luck.

We were getting no spark at any of the HT Leads and speaking to betaboyz decided to start checking for power at the ignition coil. A multimeter was purchased and we checked power to the coil and ballast resistor.

At one point we did have spark but the issue now was that we had no spark at all. We had power at coil but no spark and so I replaced the ignition coil, HT leads, Rotor Arm and Distributor cap. The new coil gave a much stronger reading when tested but we still had no spark.

This then left two possibilities assuming all of the new items were functioning properly. The Distributor or the Bosch Electronic ignition module.

It is impressive to think that this 45 year old car had electronic ignition at a time when many others were still running a mechanical distributor.

I decided to focus on the ignition unit and secured a second hand unit locally in London. I did not want to remove the distributor until I had eliminated the ignition module as defective. Despite my extensive searching I could not locate a new one so a second hand module was my only option.

With my 'new' second hand Bosch Ignition Unit in hand I swapped it for the one on car and again tried starting car. The HT lead for each spark plug was tested and the little light in the tester flashed.

We had spark !!

It looks like the ignition module was the issue and the car nearly started, the engine was turning over at a much higher speed than previously. I did get a flash of fire from the carb and a bang from the exhaust as it expelled dust. This was more progress than I had made in the last 6 weeks.

As a proud Brummie when looking for someone to recondition my ignition modules my search started in and around the West Midlands.

There are so many small businesses specialising in particular services such as ignition modules test and repair so it was no surprise to find what I needed very close to home.

I cannot recommend enough looking for such specialists in and around Brum, you will be surprised by what you can find.

I located an auto electrician locally who has checked the Ignition Unit and located a failed component. He will be replacing it so hopefully we will have two working units.

Hopefully we will not need to repair the distributor but in any event we are getting closer to starting the Lancia.

FYI the ignition module is part number BOSCH 0227 100 014