78 Riv

[Brenticon]

Jan 6, 2019 20:28:49 GMT -8 Volktales said:

Is the black magnetic ring rubbing on something? If your going to your points, make sure they are old and not recent Bosch. Their quality has taken a big dump lately...

I'm not sure. I didn't inspect that. Mike has some wire paint? I'm gonna try to seal up small cut-like scars and reinstall.
Once installed I'll check. It kind of ran but under any load there was a hesitation. 
Dailing it in, ugh!

[PICTUP]

Jan 8, 2019 9:23:52 GMT -8 Brenticon said:

Dailing it in, ugh!

Keep at it Brent. She'll be purring like a kitten by the time the weather is ready for camping(okay, being that it is snowing... probably sooner!)

[wcp]

i had my petronix randomly take a dump too. no changes, everything secured properly, lots of kms under it's belt, then the timing started going wild all over the place. switched back to points and haven't looked back. i have nothing good to say about those expensive little buggers.

[mitchy965]

funny,i have installed many (more than 25) pertronix units in vws,porsche,vintage cars,muscle cars even a 2 distributor ferrari 308 with absolutely no issues or failures. i personally wont ever go back to points! (cant buy good points and condensers any more).

[Volktales]

Mine have never failed either...

[1hotvw]

not all coils are suitable for use with pertronix. its the ohms I believe. most people slap them in and never think about the coil they use. I don't have current instruction's to look up. the coil doesn't fry but the pertonix unit goes south. I have them since the 90s. still good.

[mitchy965]

4cly vws use a 3ohm (primary resistance) coil as they have no external ballast resistor. most other vehicles use a 1.5 ohm coil because they have an external resistor or like old chebys have a resistive wire in the harness.it comes down to how much voltage the points or pick up can handle. the lower the primary resistance the higher the secondary output. MOST pertronix can run a full 12volts and use no resistor. hotter coils have even less resistance (like .6 ohms)for a higher output but must be matched with a trigger that can handle the higher current load(high energy ignition). thats why pertronix sells different pick ups ( I,II or III ).for our acvws stick with a series I pick up and a 3 ohm coil and happiness will ensue.

[Brenticon]

Thanks guys ...
They did work great. I'll reinstall again.
Could a splice length wise cause issues.
Both wires look like they are slightly sliced mm from the pick up
I just thought possible exposure might explain weird performance
Buddy said he has some wire repair paint in going to try first

[CrazyBrit]

The Pertronix in my Ghia went bad a few years ago too. I bought the Pertronix and coil as a set back when the car was in the UK, so it was the correct coil. I installed it in an aftermarket Bosch 009 that I bought at the same time. It was early 2000's.
It lasted around 10 years or more, then one day it started running really rough, backfired several times and stopped. I had no spark, so replaced the distributor with my spare that was fitted with points and condenser and she fired right up.
I was told that the coil you use depends upon which model of Pertronix you have. They are not all the same.

[Volktales]

The most problematic Pertronix models are the ones that come pre-installed in a repro 009 type distributor. The build quality is generally awful on these units. Mine are all the conversion modules installed in original German distributors with original German coils.

[CrazyBrit]

That's what mine was. I think it was a first generation Pertronix. It was an aftermarket Bosch 009 that I installed the kit into.

[Brenticon]

ok, on going saga continues ....

So, shortly after getting this baby back on the road, my alt light decided to come on.
After checking for a pulse from it, it was determined that the alt I was running was from an early bay.
I guess they upgraded not only amperage but cooling fans on the front.
Lucky for me, I had one in my stash, and after a cruise out to A&B to test it, it was tie for the install ......

if only things went that smoothly on vw's.
I pulled it rather simply, but seems the back rubber boot for cooling is different.
and since the rubber boots aren't minipulital(is that a word?), I had to pull whole shroud to access.
(thank god Rob had a proper boot)





with some wiggling and swearing, i got the new boot in.
old one was oval shaped, compared to the round one on the newer version



It was also mentioned I should try and put both back flow shields back on, but since I only had one, I made the other



A bit of playing and some fine tuning, and she's back up and running.

this was a classic case of 1 step forward and three steps back
it took me from Sunday to Thursday to get it all back together.
Dam Vokswagens!!!!