Hi Jim
long time no talk.
What broke on mine... well lets see:
after having the tranny rebuilt and than replacing the clutch, TO bearing, and pilot bushing during the tranny install I went to take it for a test drive.
Ran like CRAP!
Now, I have been chasing a poor running condition for a while but this was beyond anything as bad as it ever was. I knew the carb was off somehow (it was never right ever since it came back from a major rebuild a few years ago (but that fiasco is another story by itself) so I took it off and opened it up. Found the primary jetting was way off - stock jetting on the primary should be #65 jets and I found #72 jets in there (back to adding to the list of screw-ups by the carb rebuilder). That explained why it always seemed to run way too rich. I re-jetted it and hoped it would solve the problem but no...
Kept digging and found I actually had two dead cylinders. #'s 2 and 7 weren't firing. Did a continuity test on the wires and found them fine although #7 was a bit picky about giving me a reading at all at times so I suspected at least a partially broken wire giving intermittent operation.
Replaced all the plugs and wires with some barely used spares I had and still no improvement. WTF??!!
Kept investigating and discovered dwell was way up at 45º so the points were barely opening. depending on any irregularity on the distributor cam lobe that could mean that #2 and #7 positions weren't opening up at all creating the dead cylinders.
To be safe I replaced the distributor cap, rotor, points, condensor, and again replaced the spark plugs and wires with all bran new parts. Set the points initially with a matchbook which was close enough to at least get her to fire and start and set dwell and reset timing. She runs great now although the carb still needs a bit more dialing in.
So... somehow the "dwell" had ending up breaking on me by being up at 45º when in the past it was always set at 30º and always pretty much stayed right there at 30º give or take a degree whether it was over a summer of driving or sitting in winter storage.
Between the tranny R&R, doing the clutch and pilot bearing, and than chasing the carb and ignition issues yeah, it's been real fun the last couple weeks... :eyerole