Sparkrite electronic ignition

I dont want to slag old cars off to much the Sprinters Mot is tomorrow. Gulp

 

The early prototype Minis had the engine the other way round, which was great for the electrics but had the unfortunate side effect of the carb icing up in cold weather....

 

Magnum coupe.

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They do indeed but not cheap at around £225 new without a dizzy - makes a 123 look good value
I picked up a decent 2nd hand one for about half that ...

 

There was a plastic cover you could buy for the old Minis ignition coil. It helped.

And my 1.1 Ford Fiesta used to come to a stop with the spark plug recesses in the head full of water - I used to drive a minor road over the North Downs parallel to the A23 that turned into a 2 inch deep fast flowing stream for about half a mile when it rained. The car would stop, you waited 10 minutes for the water to boil off then you started and drove home.

That one also had a fuel shutoff solenoid on the VV carburettor. Which was wired from a hard point on the firewall behind the engine . The wire partly snapped at the firewall. Which meant when it was going up hills at 50mph or you floored it it would judder or die.

 

You could also use a marigold plastic glove with the ends of the fingers cut off, as Dubs said, Mini vans were the worst, the front grilles were just pressed out slots in the front panel.

 

I have a genuine distributor cover somewhere, plastic with press studs , though in 10 years of running minis I only had the problem once and it was battering it down and windy

 

100_0743 by mark tilley, on Flickr

IMG_0792 by mark tilley, on Flickr

Been fitted to Pample for about 8 years. I've still got the instruction /fitting details, I can do a screen shot thing for you if you need it. No problems with it at all (touches head ).

 

They work very well.

 

Thats the 1970's style one, I remember the two neons and the little toggle switch.

 

Good to hear its working well, I seem to have different colour wires on mine.

 

That one's a Vauxhall Firenza, later became the Magnum Coupe.

 

I think that might be a Viva E Coupe, built with the 1256 engine to use up spare Magnum and Firenza bodyshells.

 

Yep - drive through a puddle and everything went dead.
Mine also had the starter on the floor - the exhaust used to touch the connections underneath - everything dead again.

 

You can’t beat British engineering!

 

I can't slag off British cars on the strength of my crap Mini - it was a 1960 model (one of the early ones - an Austin Se7en) and I owned it for 1 year in 1973/4 - so it was getting on a bit then, and the exhaust bracket was broken and the water shield in front of the dizzy was missing as I learned afterwards.)