Ok, I need some help. Patient:'74 2.0 Djet with Pertronix. Symptoms: Tach dancing intermittently; occasional skip in the motor, sometimes worse than others. Today the car drove alright with an occasional miss and the more occasional dancing tach, but tonight, I could barely accelerate beyond about 2500 without it skipping and missing. The tach dances are not always accompanied by a skip. I just changed the cap and rotor, but that does not seem to have helped any.

Where to look next? I would think the dancing tach might be a good clue.....

Plug wires, plugs, pertronix, coil are all new within the last 18 months......

My bet is you have a loose wire at the coil.

Hmmm..have you checked the fuel injection? Electrical connectors at the injectors, fuel pressure OK?

Is it running on all 4 when this happens?

James (Lapuwali)-
The next time you find yourself in North Carolina, I owe you a beer and a nice long sip of 'shine!!!! I always, always overlook the simple things and assume the worst. A little squeeze from my needle nose pliers on the female connectors did the trick!! The tach lead was barely hanging on! Thanks!!!!

Peter-
That was starting to be my concern, trigger points, etc....I just thought it odd that the tach was dancing and I didn't think the trigger points were tied into it at all.....Thanks for the response!!

Twern't nothin...

I've had wobbly, bouncy tachs on a number of cars, and it's often a sign of failing points on cars so equipped. On a Pertronix setup, esp. a brand new one, loose wires at the coil are often a cause of this kind of thing. If you let it go, eventually the points give up, or the wire falls off the coil, and you stop. My best example of this was crossing the Mojave in the middle of the night in a FIAT, when the tach started to wave around wildly...ahem.

Glad I could help.

Whew!! Dodged a bullet there. Have fun in Laurinburg. Those new stickies will love the concrete.

You might want to try disconnecting the tach feeder wire at the coil (black/purple stripe) and see if the problem goes away. It goes from the tach to the relay board and then from the relay board to the tach so there is a possibility of four connectors that can cause problems. If either of the connectors at the relay board plugs are loose or have gotten corroded the missing/intermittant tach can result. I ran a new wire on the race car 914 to bypass the connectors so there will never be a problem with the tach feed. Good luck

POW!!! A blast from the past!!! What's going on, Ben??? All moved in??? Do me a favor and send me an email, I had a computer crash at work and lost all contact info.....

Looking forward to experiencing the Laurinburg mystique on stickies....Hopefully it will be a tight course, or horsepower may win out....

What's your scoop??? I hate being the only teener in attendance.....