LZ ignition

Hello All

Update, still waiting for glass and chrome to be done, I have had to do a bit of work on the restoration of my sons 1952 E83 Ford van, so the LZ has taken a back seat for a couple of weeks, But I decided to remove the distributor, and fit the new points that came from Jack May, Colin Spong has kindly offered to set it up for me.

I got it off, and had a terrible time trying to strip it down, it had been butchered a little bit in the past, I had to do quite a bit of cleaning up with a file, to get the spark housing a nice push in and out fit, the distributor caps were siezed in, I actualy thought someone had loctited these in, they were so tight, I put the whole thing in boiling water, and gently tapped them with a piece of wood, did this a few times, with much swearing in between, but nothing moved, I then made a puller, and tried again, still nothing, eventualy I thought, with the puller on, which consisted of a large old bearing track on the outside, which protected the plastic, if I quickly heat the outside of the aluminium case with the welding torch, I might be lucky and get the caps out before any heat damage, and it worked, all that was holding them, was that horrible white stuff, that alloy has a habit of turning into, no loctite, once cleaned up they are nice push in fit.

On checking the rotor, it was low by about 0.005" at all the firing points around the cicumference, soon sorted that out, mounted on it's cam and spindle assy in the lathe, a 0.005" skim and polish, and it was back to new.

The front and rear bushes, had very little wear, so they are OK.

The old points were absolutly worn out, low on the heels, misaligned, and greasy, I fitted the new set, which align up perfectly, set the gaps no problem at 0.015".

Now a question.

The spark housing is located into the main body, by a brass pin at the bottom, the contact plate assy is held into the housing by a lock ring, but what actualy locates it to the spark housing radialy, if you take the lockring out, you can rotate the contact plate in either direction, is it's possition solely dependant on the friction from the lockring to hold it, if so how is the initial possition set with regard to the timing of the first set of points, i.e the right hand set, when you are looking at them.

Regards

Peter Smith

Peter, on the right side of the distributor housing, near the rear there should be a small rounded plate ( with marks) with a cap screw that attaches to the breaker plate. This is for setting the intial timing of the right side points and holds the breaker plate in position. The small screw under the this plate is the adjustment that sychronizes the left set of points with the right set. You can manually set the timing and point sychro but it's not nearly as accurate as a machine designed to do this.

Hello Peecher

So that one screw is to lock everything up, once the timing is set, I thought there may have been a separate locking device for the righthand points.

I want to try and set everything up, as by the book, and then get Colin to check it on his machine, just to see how accurate It is, doing it manualy.

Fascinating ignition system, I can see why not many would want to interfere with it on a regular basis, but I am determined to have it running properly, the coils are away being rewound, so with new points and condensers, and good compressions, all should be well, after all, what's the point of having 12 cyls, if it only runs on 10.

Hope eveyone enjoys the LZ swapmeet.

Regards

Peter Smith

Peter, you are spot on. The ignition system is everything and once fixed and set up properly will give very little trouble and insure a smooth running V12.

Be sure to check out the spark plug wiring and the terminal plates.

Hello Peecher,

Yes I am renewing all the plugs, and leads as well, just as a matter of interest, I have conflicting settings for the plugs and points gaps, what are they, I have 0.020" points and 0.030" plugs, and also 0.015" points and 0.025" plugs, I have set the points to 0.015" at the moment.

Regards

Peter Smith

.015" on the points and .025" to .028" on the plugs should do it.