Product manager Nigel Donnelly reveals how he's getting on with his Triumph Spitfire

This time: solving electrical gremlins

Last time, I revealed the latest addition to my fleet… a Mk4 Triumph Spitfire with its original 1300cc engine, sans overdrive.

I also mentioned its starring role in the TV show Flipping Bangers a few years ago.

Gus Gregory and Will Trickett replaced the exhaust manifold replacement and sorted the tappet adjustment and a leaky pinion seal, and it was sold on for a modest profit.

In the TV episode, Gus and Will mention that the car has electronic ignition when investigating some running issues. Not any longer it doesn’t. 

In fact, there is a shiny new distributor on the car and traditional points ignition. I suspect what has happened is that the car wasn’t running correctly and a bit of part swapping has taken place to fix it.

It is tempting to blame old electronic ignition systems because you can’t easily test them, as you can with points, so it has been reverted. A new distributor, points and rotor arm are also in evidence, but it has not been ‘put back’ to original so much as ‘got going’. There are a few things that suggest this.

The first issue is that the distributor is not the correct one for the car. The clue to this is a cable dangling under the bonnet (shown above) for the mechanical rev counter. The new distributor fits and functions to allow the car to run sweetly, but the correct ‘Delco’ one is taller and has the mechanical drive for the rev counter.

I hadn’t even noticed the rev counter wasn't working but at least I know why. Hopefully getting the correct distributor will fix that. Another anomaly is that the HT leads aren't a matching set. That does not scream ‘good maintenance’ so a new set of those and new spark plugs feel like a good investment.

In order to get the car off my friend's driveway, there had to be a certain amount of ‘mucking about’ to get it running. He said that he had run a temporary feed from the battery directly to the coil to get it to start. Alarm bells! This also means that, once started, it won’t turn off with the key. You need to clamber under the bonnet and remove the feed. This is top of the list of things to investigate.

I suspect either some sort of issue with the ignition switch or, more likely, more issues with the recent ignition electric work. I've been printing out wiring diagrams from the Digital Haynes Manual for the Spitfire to help work out what the original set-up would have been and whether the current arrangement needs further attention.

Given the mixture of bits fitted, I'm also wondering if the coil may be incorrect. A bit of detective work with the multimeter is definitely on the horizon.