fire or fuel

[farmboy89]

I have a Mallory distributor system that every thing is in the distributor (no box). The carb is a little sloppy and getting old....


The problem is when it seems like there is a little moister in the air (rain or high humidity) the car will run then cut off. a couple times i have been running down the road with a pretty good warmed up motor and it cuts off then cuts right back on. I’m not sure what it is. Check the engine bay for sparkplug wire jumping juice out and grounding out but I am pretty sure that’s not it. There is no shutter, sputter, or warning at all when it happens just straight dead. Car shows no signs of when the next time it will not run....


Any help out there?

 

[wild goose]

Check the of the distributor cap for water, if its wet try spraying a light coat of wd-40 on it to repel the moisture.

 

[farmboy89]

I just found out its not the water......

Today it started fine this morning after a rain storm, then ran fine for about 5 minutes then cut off. Started right back up and ran fine for the rest of the drive. Cut it off again, and it sat for a while. Drove it home and ran fine a first, BUT cut off going down the road, then cut right back on. Got home, tried to do some research ( seems to be a Mallory 47 series but with a mechanical advance cant quit figure it out exactly) took off the distributor cap on the car and the middle piece fell out.
Thought that that was my problem, put my old cap on, it started and ran fine, until the five minutes happened again and it died without a sputter any of the time that the car died. Started and ran with out a problem for 15 minutes after that....

Its got me completely stumped...

Any help?

 

[BarnStang]

WHat year car is this? It could be a lot of things. I wonder if there is some problem with the ign circuit...Can you run a jumper from the battery(+) to the coil(+) and se if the problem remains. It would take one thing out of the picture at least. (Ign wiring/switch) RIght after it dies, check and see if the carb is dry. Pull air cleaner, push the throttle open manually and see if it squirts fuel. THe problem does not really scream fuel problem though...seems electrical, but you never know.

 

[Loup-garou]

Sounds like the Unilite (sp?) module is failing. Google Unilite + troubleshooting and you'll find other people reporting very similar problems. If it is a Unilite model, there's supposed to be a ballast resistor wired in the system. Is that how yours is configured?

Hope this helps.

 

[farmboy89]

That's the system i think, and i just replaced the resister... and i still have the problem. i have directly connected it so to by pass it also, and it still will cut off in the same pattern.