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drolston · 03-23-2021, 06:44 PM

Went through ignition hell this winter, caused by spiral wound ignition cables with flimsy brass connectors that broke (invisibly) inside rubber boots to the crab distributor, after a few times removing and replacing. Replaced them with copper core wires from Van Pelt. Perfect fit and they look great with the old-school Raja plug connectors.

In spite of Pertronix good advice that their electronic points would not work with copper, due to radio frequency interference with the circuit, I took the Barn person's word who said Pertronix worked fine with solid copper core wires for years. Didn't work so well for me. I got a weak yellow spark for a while and then it croaked. So, went to the Third Gen points distributor, which I always carried as a backup. Started right up, idled fine for a minute, started to get a little rough, chugged, and died. On cranking, it would chug a little but not start. Replaced the coil with the Bosch Blue; got a nice big blue spark, but still chug with no start. By this time the plugs were looking a little black, so I put in a new set of NGK, gapped to a loose 0.025. Now it will start and run for maybe five seconds, and then stumbles to a stop.

Acts like it is flooding: Smell of gas. Wet plugs.

Pulled the top of of all three 97's expecting to find a sunk float. Nope; they are all shutting flow with the fuel at about 0.5" from the rim. The rear carb bowl seems to evaporate down faster that the other two. Could it be leaking into the manifold? Common with 94 power valve problems, but not so much with the 97's. I raised main jets from .045 to .047 last year. I am maybe too cautious about overtightening the jets. Could one of them have vibrated loose, causing flooding?

Ideas?

As beautiful as those three chrome plated 97's are on that polished Offy tri-power manifold, they may be more trouble than they are worth.

03-23-2021, 06:44 PM	#1
drolston Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: Williamsburg, VA Posts: 1,629	Ignition Problem or Carb Problem Went through ignition hell this winter, caused by spiral wound ignition cables with flimsy brass connectors that broke (invisibly) inside rubber boots to the crab distributor, after a few times removing and replacing. Replaced them with copper core wires from Van Pelt. Perfect fit and they look great with the old-school Raja plug connectors. In spite of Pertronix good advice that their electronic points would not work with copper, due to radio frequency interference with the circuit, I took the Barn person's word who said Pertronix worked fine with solid copper core wires for years. Didn't work so well for me. I got a weak yellow spark for a while and then it croaked. So, went to the Third Gen points distributor, which I always carried as a backup. Started right up, idled fine for a minute, started to get a little rough, chugged, and died. On cranking, it would chug a little but not start. Replaced the coil with the Bosch Blue; got a nice big blue spark, but still chug with no start. By this time the plugs were looking a little black, so I put in a new set of NGK, gapped to a loose 0.025. Now it will start and run for maybe five seconds, and then stumbles to a stop. Acts like it is flooding: Smell of gas. Wet plugs. Pulled the top of of all three 97's expecting to find a sunk float. Nope; they are all shutting flow with the fuel at about 0.5" from the rim. The rear carb bowl seems to evaporate down faster that the other two. Could it be leaking into the manifold? Common with 94 power valve problems, but not so much with the 97's. I raised main jets from .045 to .047 last year. I am maybe too cautious about overtightening the jets. Could one of them have vibrated loose, causing flooding? Ideas? As beautiful as those three chrome plated 97's are on that polished Offy tri-power manifold, they may be more trouble than they are worth.