Need a little help from my friends

[rahtidone]

Guys, my 77 911 just died on me yesterday when I came of the highway and pulled into the toll booth, it acted like I ran out of Gas (which I didn't). Seems that there is no spark, however my coil, CDI, Distributor Cap and points free distributor are about a year old. The fuel pump is working, no fuses blown, I can smell and feel the fuel running through the lines, This is the first time this has happened to me with the car - it is usally dependable. Does anyone have any insights. thanks in advance for your help. Its sitting in my Mom's garage, was on my way to visit her when it broke down.

[nhromyak]

Points or the CDI unit.

Which CDI unit do you have? Permatune or BOSCH?

I can see the Permatune doing this. Not so much the Bosch unit, but it has happened.

[mskala]

If you have the Bosch CD, it should be humming if it is working (of course it pays to know what this sounds like before possibly failing). If you have the Permatune, they don't make noise but do fail. Both of my permatunes have failed intermittent when hot (not in hot part of the car, but they do generate their own heat).
Or if your dist is optical, your vane may have broken; this is easy to check. If your dist is hall effect, not much to see there. Not likely you had a coil fail if it is so new, although I have been told that an aftermarket coil like the Bosch Blue coil will not work for long with the stock Bosch CD.
Mark S.
'70 914-6

[RoninLB]

Well..do you have spark? ........Ron

[rahtidone]

Thanks for the responses. I have a permatune CDI with the hall effect dist. When I was trying to get it started at the toll booth I did pop the dist cover off to see if was cracked/damp and it seemed OK. However the rotor did have a little play in it which I thought was kind of unusual. I will be checking on the car this weekend ias I am in Miami and its sitting in my mom's garage in Ft Lauderdale to give a more detailed diagnosis. My regular mechanic just retired and moved out of the area so I'm in a quandry.

[rahtidone]

just out of curiousity what is the best way to test each part, 1) CDI 2) Coil 3)points to diagnose which one is defective before I head up to Lauderdale. Thanks.

[A Quiet Boom]

I like to work from the plugs back towards the CDI box, in this order. Plugs > Wires > Cap & Rotor > Coil > Dizzy > CDI. If by chance you saved your old parts (assuming they worked) you could swap them out one by one until you find the problem.

[thrown_hammer]

What is the "dizzy"?

[Zendalar]

dizzystrubitor =)

Distributor

[rahtidone]

Guys, went by my mom's house today but could only spend about 1/2 hour on the car. I did confirm that I had no spark at the plugs and there is no spark from the center coil wire to the distributor. I suspect that it is the Permatune CDI (even though it is less than a year old) Will be checking back in a couple of days.

[Early_S_Man]

rahtidone,

There is no such thing as a 'Hall-effect' Bosch distributor!

If you have a 6-pin CDI-unit, then the distributor has a magnetic pickup coil made of plain copper wire -- with a nominal resistance of 600 Ohms. The green coax cable from those magnetic pickup coils is subject to cracking and shorting out.

There is a troubleshooting procedure at the Permatune site. Be aware that it contains a LOT of BS about how the Permatune unit is failsafe, and almost never the problem ... which is contrary to the real-world experiences of recent owners. Permatune units of recent manufacture have a known high-temperature failure problem!

What coil are you using? The Bosch OEM is supposed to measure 0.4 to 0.6 Ohms on the primary winding, and 650 to 790 Ohms on the secondary.

ps ... early blue anodized Permatunes DO whistle just like the Bosch units ... but that was before the Permatunes were potted in black epoxy! The epoxy doesn't seem to have helped their reliability!

[rahtidone]

Folks, I have an update, after troubleshooting each portion of my ignition system I narrowed it down to my year old coil! It seems that the "bosch" coil I have was actually made in Brazil. I plugged in my old (possibly 24 year old) coil and it cranked right up. I replaced this coil when I put in a new permatune cd and converted the distributor to be points free (Warren, this is what I interpeted the Hall effect distributor that was mentioned previously to be, a old bosch dist with a points free unit installed) and replaced my wires. Here I am being pre emptive, replacing an old part before it was broken and I get screwed. Am I a little prejudiced to believe Bosch is supposed to mean made in Germany! Thank God the car did not die with me on the Turnpike and puttered out when I got to the toll booth. But serioulsy, beware of so called "bosch" coils.

[rahtidone]

Thanks for the help guys, it helps when you know others are out there to help.

[pwd72s]

Originally posted by rahtidone
Folks, I have an update, after troubleshooting each portion of my ignition system I narrowed it down to my year old coil! It seems that the "bosch" coil I have was actually made in Brazil. I plugged in my old (possibly 24 year old) coil and it cranked right up. I replaced this coil when I put in a new permatune cd and converted the distributor to be points free (Warren, this is what I interpeted the Hall effect distributor that was mentioned previously to be, a old bosch dist with a points free unit installed) and replaced my wires. Here I am being pre emptive, replacing an old part before it was broken and I get screwed. Am I a little prejudiced to believe Bosch is supposed to mean made in Germany! Thank God the car did not die with me on the Turnpike and puttered out when I got to the toll booth. But serioulsy, beware of so called "bosch" coils.

The first guy to warn me about today's "bosch" coils?: Ronnie...in LB. Sorry L.A....

[Doug Zielke]

I believe it was Warren who first exposed the "Made in Brazil" Bosch coils here on the BBS....and their apparent lack of quality.

[RoninLB]

hey Doug...Warren is higher than me on the food chain/no question....................Ron