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Electronic ignition, alternator conversions, tech issues


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On Tony's advice I bought & fitted a classichead kit to the WC 54 & it cured the starting problems straight away . Unfortunately the starter itself has now ceased to function so I'm not a lot better off but I live in hope !

 

 

Is your WC54 on 12v I didn't realise there was a 6v kit available?

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Collapsed brake lines, have you thought of using cupro nickel brake pipe? Once fitted it is garunteed for the life of the vehicle, so it will be your great grandkids problem. It is also more ductile than steel so easier to fit. To (again) quote my old Mentor Howard, 'a bugger if they don't go a disaster if they don't stop. And whe you consider most old vehicles suddenly stopping are down to electrics, the electronic makes a hell of a dffrence.

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The one rigid line I've replaced due to a not-very-careful recovery driver last year :mad: was replaced with some cupro Nickel pipe a friend sourced ouit of his Porsche business, the collapsed line was a flexi so a set came from Dallas, really quick postage :D Attempting the brake adjust tomoz!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Finally got my electronic ignition unit fitted today. I had a bit of a delay waiting for some mounting brackets as the original Hotchkiss type is different to the Willys type, and I needed a bracket for the coil which was enclosed in the distributor on the Hotchkiss unit.

 

Anyway, the position of the old distributor was noted so the new one could be fitted in approximately the same postion, and the old unit removed. The coil bracket uses one long bolt to pinch the bracket around the coil and then bolts to the cylinder head. This pinch bolt needed shortening slightly as when nipped up on the coil, the end of the bolt fouled the nuts that hold the bracket to the engine. This had nothing to do with the Jolley Engineering parts, and was a standard replacement Willys part. It was no big deal to trim the bolt.

 

The new electronic unit was supplied in a refurbished Willys distributor. This was a more expensive option than to just get the electronics kit to fit my Hotchkiss distributor. Should I need replacement rotor arms and distributor caps in the future, I figured it would be easier and cheaper to get Willys parts than Hotchkiss parts. I had also replaced the old screw on Hotchkiss HT leads with Willys ( Hotchkiss sealed leads are hard to find ), requiring a bit of a bodge to keep them in the Hotchkiss metal dizzy cap. With the new Willys unit, the HT leads were the correct fit for the cap, and it looks much nicer.

 

With the new dizzy fitted, the ballast resistor was bolted to the firewall, through an existing hole a little below the hood hinge. The wiring connections were then made, double checked, and ignition switched on.

 

 

 

The engine turned over but wouldn't fire. We had taken care to ensure the new unit went on in approximately the same place, but no go! So I turned the engine over again and the distributor was slowly turned in its clamp until there were signs of life! As it turned out, the new unit had the engine running smoothly about 20 degrees different to the Hotchkiss unit! While the old system has been running me around for the last 10000 miles, it would seem that it was out just a bit. The old system ran ok, although it was sluggish pulling away from stationary, and coughed a little going from a slight right turn to left turn when exiting roundabouts.

 

 

 

With the new electronic unit, the response when pulling away from stationary is much better, there's no hiccup during the 'S' bend coming off a roundabout, and on the long climbs on the A1 going home, I was able to maintain speed where before I would generally slowly bleed speed off.

 

 

 

I am yet to find out whether the fuel economy improves, but I can't see why it wouldn't as I'm getting better power at any given accelerator position. I had been getting quite sooty plugs recently on the old system, so obviously wasn't burning the fuel efficiently.

 

Inside the Dizzy cap

 

 

The pictures were all taken before the wiring was tidied up and the HT leads passed through rubber grommets in the old Hotchkiss lead clips.

dizzy2.jpg

dizzy4.jpg

dizzy3.jpg

dizzy1.jpg

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Hi Steve , the timing was obviously adrift but I wouldn't expect that to cause the problems on roundabouts. It sounds more like a fuel problem but did you ever check to see if under side loads the Willys type dizzy leads were shorting to the metal Hotchkiss cap?

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There was no shorting, I can be sure of that. The hiccup happened as you were demanding power accelerating out of the roundabout. It was the same as you demanded power pulling away from stationary, especially with the trailer. When ever I wanted power at low speeds ( 15 to 30 mph ) it had issues, but over that speed was fine.

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