Well, I tried messing with the float level, both up and down. Up made it run worse, down didn't change much. The problem was the same, It would be fine until the car warmed a little, and then seemed to cut out at low RPS. I then took a look at the distributor advance springs, and I noticed one spring the tab had been bent so as the spring had no tension at idle. I corrected that, and then opened adjusted the vacuum canister to have less tension so that it would open earlier. I checked the voltage to the coil through the resistor wire, and it was about 6 volts. I'm told this is a little low, so I thought the ignition switch may be going bad after 50 years. So, I planned on replacing it.
While on the website for the Auto Parts store looking to see a picture of an ignition switch, I noticed a picture of a distributor rotor - and it looked nothing like the one I bought just a few months ago! So last night after work, I bought a new rotor and compared the two - the new one fits on the shaft better (the old one would turn about 5 degrees), and the new one was also shorter by about 1/8" inch. I put on the new rotor - and the car runs as good and as strong as it ever did! I'm not sure if I was sold the wrong rotor before, or if it was a crappy brand, or perhaps because it was a different brand than the distributor cap, but that apparently was the problem. Go figure. Lessons learned:
- Just because you recently replaced a part does not mean it is bad.
- Just because a part does not look worn does not mean it is not bad.
- Always replace the distributor cap and rotor at the same time with the same brand of part.
While on the website for the Auto Parts store looking to see a picture of an ignition switch, I noticed a picture of a distributor rotor - and it looked nothing like the one I bought just a few months ago! So last night after work, I bought a new rotor and compared the two - the new one fits on the shaft better (the old one would turn about 5 degrees), and the new one was also shorter by about 1/8" inch. I put on the new rotor - and the car runs as good and as strong as it ever did! I'm not sure if I was sold the wrong rotor before, or if it was a crappy brand, or perhaps because it was a different brand than the distributor cap, but that apparently was the problem. Go figure. Lessons learned:
- Just because you recently replaced a part does not mean it is bad.
- Just because a part does not look worn does not mean it is not bad.
- Always replace the distributor cap and rotor at the same time with the same brand of part.
