John Boggiano

Bit of a long shot asking this whilst at work, but...

Whilst cleaning out my ISV yesterday, I noticed that there was a 'ticking' noise from the region of the distributors.

I took both caps off and couldn't see any evidence of cracks or carbon trails, etc. I cleaned everything up and put it all back together (eventually!), but the ticking persists. The belt is intact and in good shape.

It doesn't really sound like a valve.

Any ideas?

Arjan B.

Look in the dark tonight, see if any blue sparks are around the spark cables. May be you have a bad cable in that area.

John Boggiano

I'll try that later tonight.

Also, I can smell ozone if I get close enough to the distributors. As I haven't stuck my nose close to a running distributor before, is this normal? Seems reasonable, but could someone try theirs for me, please?

garrett376

If you have a long screwdriver (and I mean long) you can put it on the distributor metal body, and the handle against your ear and you'll be able to tell if the ticking comes from the dizzy or somewhere else. You end up using the screwdriver like a stethoscope. This works great for finding noisy valves, broken piston rods, slapping pistons, or the like (from experience... - learned this from my friends at S-Car-Go Racing)

What does ozone smell like?!

warmfuzzies

IIRC Ozone smells really fresh, like a waterfall.

kevin.

TrackJunke

The distributor will make a sound if the rotor is not fully seated. The rotor will kind of bump against the inside of the distributor. This is probably not your problem unless they were recently changed but thought it would be another thing to consider.

John Boggiano

If you've ever had a model railway, you'll know the smell of ozone.

Got too tied up doing staff payroll to do anything further tonight. :grr

garrett376

Yeah, I was just trying to elicit a good response out of kevin!! Success!!

Let us know what you come up with - remember that Howard (Khadmus) had his distributor rotors jump the belt because of a catching rotor! Get that fixed!!!

Kahdmus

warmfuzzies

John Boggiano

So...

Can anyone smell ozone when their distributors are 'running'?

Arjan B.

No ozone here, I think you have a broken cap or cable, so it will give the smell of a shortcut or ozone. Let check the cables on a motortester, then you know for sure. Something is not right.

John Boggiano

Thanks, Arjan.

I'll try to take a look tonight. Along with doing a DME reset (idle gone AWOL) and a few other things.

garrett376

Sorry to go OT John B.

I'd first check that all the caps of the spark plug wires (and coil wires) are seated very firmly on the dizzy caps. They are very very snug, and if you took some off here and there before, you may not have seated them entirely. Somewhere you've got a connection where you're not fully contacted between two electrical sources, causing the arc which you're smelling. Or you have a split in a plug wire, causing a short. The high-tension circuit of the ignition is really the only spot this could occur with enough energy to make that much smell, I'd think. In the dark, follow each plug wire to see if you find anything.

Arjan B.

You could use a water sprayer, one you use for plants.
If you spray water on each of the the wires, and the engine starts running strange, you are in the right area.