Points and Dwell setting, Yes I forgot how...I know !!! YOU DUMBASS! Options

[Steve Thacker]

I can't for the life of me rember how to set dwell properly on cars. I have been setting points since I was a teenager. I get this thing on a crane optical back when I first bought the car in 2000 and it went belly up last week.

I put in new points, cap, rotor ( non rev limited), condenser, sparkys, wires oh yea a new coil in the car before I began
( back to simple old skool). yea right.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

Firing order on wires set to 1-4-3-2 CW.

I set the points to .016 and I can get the car started. I put a digital meter on the
+ and - on the coil and got the car to start with some dizzy turning
( damn it is sensitive).

Well... the dwell on the meter is showing 88.8 and yes it is set on dwell. I go back make sure the point shoe is straddling the lobe on the dizzy shaft and check the gap again. Still at 016. OK I'm good... Then I proceed to start the car up again and get my timing light in place to set the timing. I set the timing light dial to 27 degrees and point it at the timing whole and look for my marks. I have the old lady rev it up to 3500 and hold it steady (great gal she is). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I look for the white mark as I'm adjusting the dizzy and pull it into view and place it in the V notch. I have her take her foot off the pedal and I take over. Well...the damn car will not rev past 4k when it is floored!

The throttle body butterfly is wide open and the car is laboring.

Fuel pressure is at 29lbs and steady

(Adjusted valves back a year ago and have only put 40 miles on the car)

What gives...am I missing something simple here?

Please help fellas I'm pulling my hair out. Must be halfziemers setting in.

[zymurgist]

Dr. Evil,

Sounds about right to me!

I have been chasing the exact same problem with Babydoll. Bought a dwell meter specifically to fix this problem. Symptoms were the same, no power, won't rev, dwell was way out (in the 80 range). Got the dwell set correctly and ballparked the timing (can't see the timing mark on the fan).

IMO you're gonna be really lucky if you can hit it dead on 47. It's a matter of taking off the distributor cap, loosening the points, adjusting them ever so slightly, tightening, buttoning up the dizzy, starting the car, and checking the dwell setting with the engine running. Rinse and repeat.

I hear that Babydoll once again has the same problem... I suspect that either the dwell is out again or an injector is not firing, and the car is 2 hours away from my house so it's a major deal for me to fix it.

Sears has a nice digital dwell meter that also serves as a multimeter.