Posted by Sherman in Idaho [24.32.202.166] on Tuesday, October 01, 2013 at 16:58:30 :
In Reply to: Best of the forum posted by Sterling Luttrell [99.58.180.94] on Tuesday, October 01, 2013 at 13:40:57 :
I understand your idea, but most of what could go in a troubleshooting "FAQ" is the sort of thing you'd find in a very basic introductory auto mechanics text. These old engines are text-book simple. Troubleshooting is "divide and conquer". Is it fuel or is it spark. Is there fuel at the fuel pump? At the carb? Is there electricity in the battery? At the coil? Do the plugs spark?
I'm not saying it isn't always easy to find the problem, but anything you could put in an FAQ would be the easy stuff, that would also be in any decent book. On the other hand, if turns out not to be totally bonehead simple, then it's often too hard to describe properly here.
Your issues are a case in point. Several times you thought you had it fixed, and yet there was always something else. Look at any old rig and you can always find things "wrong" with it, but they're not usually the cause of the immediate problem. You can either "shotgun" it, replacing everything you can think of that might have something to do with it, or you can learn to troubleshoot and diagnose so that when you're done you will have replaced ONLY what was actually bad. I suspect in the case of your points and condenser, just taking the old ones out and putting them back in again might well have solved your problem, which could have just been something loose or shorted.
We all enjoy trying to puzzle out these various problems, and I know I always learn something when I find out what it turned out to be, but there's a limit to what a guy can do remotely, especially when the description of the problem is confusing or leaves out some important thing that would be obvious to a good mechanic standing there looking at it.