1985 Ford Escort mk3 Popular - welding time again!

[cjhillman]

Well i've really done something here

I thought "I have a spare 10 mins, why not change the dizzy cap and rotor arm". Now it just turns over and over then locks up.

I basically took the old cap and rotor arm off. New arm in, swapped leads to new cap 1 by 1 and then put the new cap on and now it wont fire!! I took it off straight away and put all the old stuff back on... same. Checked the firing order 1-2-4-3 from the crack side and the rotor arm spins anti clock wise so that seems fine... I cant see what i've done.

Had a good mess with it again. I tried turning the distributor anti clockwise a bit to retard it (i got this from the questions section) and it didnt really change much. I even tried the other way and it didnt seem to do much either.

I took off the HT leads, added the new cap and rotor. Also I took a couple of pics at TDC of the points / inside of the distributor so show how it looking.








It turns over but after a while just stops with the key turned which i don't understand. I'm wondering if its the points but... nothings happened!! Just took the cap and rotor arm off and put it back on

Tomorrow I'll cycle down to somewhere and pick up new plugs. I have some old Ford leads I can test in case something is wrong with the leads but I just don't understand. I thought i'd flooded it so left it for a while but it just fires a few times then stops on its own.

[ivangt6]

What gap do you have on the points?

[cjhillman]

Sept 21, 2020 19:59:20 GMT ivangt6 said:

What gap do you have on the points?

I'm not sure. I didnt mess with them as I thought id be going of the beaten track and maybe make it worse but at TDC they do seem closed. I was loosing light before so this is where I'm at.

[ivangt6]

It's worth a check mate. If you've only replaced the dizzy cap and rotor arm it's probably something simple. Definitely possible to nudge the points while removing a stubborn rotor arm

[cjhillman]

Right I feel such an idiot ... I new it was something simple .

Checked the cap, that was fine.
Checked the points (which did seem to have moved and were shut at TDC) . Sorted that by touching them haha.
Checked for spark , had spark
Said a prayer (Didn’t work)
Moved the HT leads along one post and it jumped into life .... feel such an idiot . I’m going to half blame my neighbour who yet again when I was in the middle of a job ran out to tell me something about an old Cortina he had.
I didn’t think it would be that as the manual said No 1 from the crank case side. For some reason my number 1 is one along behind the inlet .

I’m going to pick up some new plugs, plug number 2 seems to have lost its end to the HT lead... probably why it’s not as smooth as it should be. That or points, condenser but I’ll leave that for a bit ha!

[commycouper]

Well done! It's quite often the simple things that cause the biggest problems.

[ballbagbagins]

If it makes you feel better I've also done this.

[cjhillman]

I thought it couldnt be much but man what a headache that was!!

Worryingly I'm having some problems with the ignition system on my Capri. Spoke to Powerspark about replacing the distributor and coil with their stuff... hoping I'm up for the challenge if I cant even get this right

[kevins]

We've all done it It's a good feeling when you find out what's wrong though.

I would not assume any Ford has the dizzy in the correct position nowadays, once they have been out they can go back almost anywhere and people tend to just move the plug leads around to suit.

[cjhillman]

Good to know re distributor out. I need to read up about this prodecure anyway.

I picked up 4 new plugs for it and the bloke at the shop got out the end that was stuck in the HT lead from the old no.2 plug. I've only moved it a few meters and it already seems better... must write down my service intervals

[cjhillman]

Had one of those moments today where I said "right, I have 15 mins, lets quickly fit those spark plugs and check the timing". Which was fine but no:1 plug shattered and I had to cycle to Halfords to get a 1/4" drive socket to get it out. Something I should have had anyway. Checked the timing and its up at 4 BDTC now. weirdly the light was fluctuating like the Capri. I started to think that i might be getting confused between when i've checked it with the vacuum pipe connected.

[PhilA]

Either that or it's tracking over from the other leads and making the timing strobe jump about.

[captbob]

Are sure the firing order shouldn’t be 1342.......not 1243?

[cjhillman]

Sept 26, 2020 16:46:53 GMT captbob said:

Are sure the firing order shouldn’t be 1342.......not 1243?

I took it from the Haynes and rings a bell from doing the tappets. You thinking of the CVH??

[captbob]

I thought 1342 was 99% of 4 cyl engines. There are deffo Crossflow engines with 1342 firing order, precisely which ones evade me right now. My question was simply a question, as in “are you sure the firing order is correct “?

[cjhillman]

My Escort met a lovely mk1 1100 today. Funny to think these are both base spec 1100 Escorts and how the mk1 looks much more special than mine. Also how much bigger my mk3 seems .

[cjhillman]

I haven't updated this for a while (same for my Capri). Things are still ticking along but I think the Escort is ready for a bout of welding also i'm getting a lot of water in the drivers side footwell so i'm not sure weather I should remove the carpet for winter so I can mop out the water, rather than trapping it in. I'm all ears for any advice. Wish I had a garage for this one but what can you do!




Heres a little Christmas video featuring the old gal. Merry Christmas all!

[vulgalour]

Urgh, 80s cars and water leaks, been dealign with that on the Maestro and have finally (I hope) figured it out. Pulling the carpets and running with floor mats is the first sensible step, you'll see really quickly where the water is getting in and be able to deal with it. Just being able to mop excess water out of the car easily will make driving more pleasant since the windows won't fog up anywhere near as badly.

Key areas I'd be looking at are: rear light cluster seals, tailgate seal, windscreen seal, and door seals. Luckily, you've got generic profile seals on the Escort (if memory serves) so it could just be that the seals are a bit flat and tired, the tailgate seals particularly were bad for going flat along the top edge down to the rear boot struts which seems plausible for your rear hatch leak. Sometime in the cold weather the tailgate seals just lose the spring they need to squash properly, a smear of Vaseline can sometimes help if it's not too bad, it's just really messy. They were also really prone (as was just about every 80s car) for the rear light cluster seals to fail.

Once you've got the carpets out you'll find it loads easier to trace the water ingress. If you need the car to defog quicker, crack your window open just enough to let some fresh air in when you set off, even with the fan and heater going. Not great fun this time of year, but it does the trick. At least you've got a nice basic model so there's not a lot to get out of the way to find how the water is getting in. If you can stick a cover on to keep the worst of the rain out once you've found the leak definitely do that too.

Nice little video too, thought I was subscribed but I wasn't, so I've fixed that now. Good luck with it! Hope you have a pleasant festive period.

[cjhillman]

Cheers mate! Trying with the videos, its nice to document my Cars too.

I'll be honest I feel that the rust and the water ingress is fairly depressing with the Escort. I love it but i think its coming round to needing a lot of work again. Definitely inner wings and passenger cill. I think I might whip out the Carpet soon to let it dry out and see where the damp is coming from like you say. Man i wish I could weld haha.

I have replaced the drivers side seal before and never got round the passenger side(seems to be dry over there). I wonder if the un used one would fit the boot lid. Re-light cluster, I've had that on the drivers side before and used a mastick gun... I should do the other side too.

Merry Christmas mate!!

[kevins]

I managed to find the leak in my daughters ka just by removing the sill and kick panel trims then lifting and folding back the carpet in the footwell.