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  #1   IP: 139.93.128.13
Old 05-23-2006, 04:17 PM
Maggie Anna Maggie Anna is offline
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Sudden shutdown

First trip of the new season and my 1966 A4 is having sudden shutdowns after warming up anywhere from 7 to 60 minutes before failure.

A little background: I just bought this boat Oct '06 and motored most of the 30 miles from her summer slip to winter jackstands so I only had her out once last year before being professionally winterized. Engine never missed a beat on the way there last fall, just as the previous owner, (one of the more honest men I've ever met), told me she would.

However, this year on the trip back to the slip, she lasted about 45 mins, then died. I can restart it, but it will die again and the less time I let her cool down, usually means less time she stays running & vice versa. As it is the sudden shutdown variety, I've been looking at the primary ignition wiring.

Immediately after the shutdown, I still find 12VDC at the + coil terminal, however, there were two times, I had 12VDC there w/o the key in the ignition, so I think the switch might be suspect as well. Condensor is shiny, so I assume it's recent, but I did not replace it.
List of things I've done with no change to the failures:
New Coil, New coil-to-dist cap wire, "hot wired" pos coil terminal to starting battery, new wire from condensor/distributor post to neg coil terminal, checked contact from condensor to dist housing is solid, Dist Cap is still shiny inside, so I figure it was put in last year, checked the rotor and it looked fairly new too. I think that's it.

Engine starts and runs perfectly until it stops. No warning, no coughing, etc. Next thing I try will be a dedicated ground, from the battery to neg coil terminal. I suppose the new coil could be bad out of the box? I have a copy of your nicely written A4 manual and will be working on her come Memorial Day weekend again. Any help you may have would be appreciated.
Tim Walior
s/v Maggie Anna
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  #2   IP: 38.118.52.41
Old 05-24-2006, 07:47 AM
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Don Moyer Don Moyer is offline
 
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Tim,

You're doing a great job of troubleshooting, and I believe you're on the right track to suspect your ignition system.

The most important item I picked up in your report is your plan to run a dedicated ground from the battery to negative coil terminal. You don't want to do this, or your coil will be continuously grounded. If it is your intent to provide this dedicated ground and to then sequentially touch the end of the wire to the head (ground) to see if you can manually make and break the primary circuit and create a secondary discharge from your coil, that would be OK.

In any case, and assuming that you have a Prestolite distributor, you might want to check the insulators around the terminal bolt as it enters the housing of the distributor. We have some history of those bolts shorting to the distributor housing, which will result in an immediate shutdown.

Don
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  #3   IP: 169.244.143.114
Old 06-12-2006, 10:09 AM
Dmann Dmann is offline
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Tim, I had the same problem for years until a local mechanic discovered the problem. I the wire connecting the oil safety switch and the coil has a fuse. The fuse kept blowing which was fortunate for my fuel pump and coil. It turns out the oil safety switch short circuited which then told the fuel pump to shut down which of course would stall the motor. For $15 dollars I have a new oil switch and the motor runs forever. Good luck!!
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  #4   IP: 139.93.128.13
Old 10-10-2006, 08:31 AM
Maggie Anna Maggie Anna is offline
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Resolved

Had no time to work on my engine any longer so hired the local marina's mechanic. Excellent man. He found a few issues, like an air leak in the fuel separator bowl's gasket, but the real problem was the spark plug wires.

I had changed plug wires and primary coil wire out w/ new during my earlier work. The Mech used an infrared heat gun and found the coil's casing was running at 240 deg F!! It never failed for him, but figured 240 deg was enough to cause an intermittent short in the coil and was causing my sudden shutdown.

The cure were new wires with straight strands for the core. The wires I had on there, were coiled core and he'd seen this sort of thing before w/ coiled core wires and heating up of the coil due to AC reactance. With the new wire set the coil is now running at 80 deg F. Huge change and there hasn't been so much as a hiccup all summer.

Problem resolved. Time to winterize her again. Take care and thank you for the feedback. It's been a real learning curve this year. Tim
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