Bucking - My Story, You look everwhere and then - it can be SO simple Options

[ctc911ctc]

914 2.0 '74 all stock


Mr. Towle, who passed suddenly about a year ago, would quietly PM me and say: its Dwell.

I would argue with him that it took me over 20 trys but I finally got the dwell to 46deg. whew.

he would counter - it is not that hard...something is wrong......and I would look in other places, make adjustments and then the car would still buck.....not as bad but it did buck.

...and Towle would say - check the dwell.

I had rebuilt the distributor, had trouble with points (some are made a tiny bit different) and thought I had it all together,,,,,,but it would still buck.

Towle would say........its Dwell.....

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Side Note, I went to his house in Northern MA, 1000 projects in flight, HUGE dairy barn full of cars, boats cars and parts....so many parts.

I left his house one day and the car would not start after stopping for gas. I called Rich (Towle) and he hung up, drove to the service station and arrived with a handful of tools and a huge smile on his face, He was that guy.
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So after Rich telling me dwell I decided to start at zero - I bought a rebuilt distributor and set the points - first time the dwell came in right at 46, wow!

I timed and drove the car.......bucking is gone!

When its Bucking, listen to your inner Towle,

ITS THE DWELL

You can always wimp out and go 123...........grin (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

[Superhawk996]

Let’s define what dwell is.

It’s basically the amount of time that the ignition coil is allowed to charge up. Not enough charge time and you end up with a weak spark. So what you end up with is basically intermittent cylinder misfire where the air fuel mix may not light off. This causes that bucking feeling as cylinders randomly miss and then hit the next stroke. Depending on temperature, and ambient conditions it can come and go somewhat randomly even though the dwell itself may not be changing. With a worn out distributor that won’t hold a steady dwell, well . . . It’s even worse.

On a modern car this would set random misfire codes.

In our antiques, it just doesn’t feel right.

So yeah - Rich was often right. Dwell needs to be right before chasing other potential causes.