Hi, I own a Willys hot rod with a 186. My dad did it up in the early 60's and I've had it since the mid 80s. I would periodically tune it by settong the points dwell, New plugs and set the timing to 6 degrees as on the dizzy sticker. It's always run very smoothly. Not powerful but smooth and reliable.

I decided to give it a pretty serious birthday and had a couple of Strombergs fitted along with some chrome. I then sent it in for complete rewiring, instruments, steering wheel, thermatic fan, LEDs, alternator and a bunch more expensive stuff I can't remember.

I asked them to put electronic ignition in but they ended up saying they couldn't get it to run nice, so they went back to original.

Anyway, it now starts and drives well but the idle is rougher than I remember. I've bee driving it for a few weeks to make sure it's all good and today I put a timing light on it and it was about 30 degrees advanced. It advanced further with some revs. I was worried that something major was going on because it didn't think it would start with that much advance and would ping(k) like a bastard, but it was all good on 95 fuel.

I retarded it back to about 8 degrees advanced and increased the idle and it seems much more smooth, but it's hard to be sure because it was so long between drives.

Do you reckon I have anything to worry about or should I just go drive? (sorry for typos, I'm on the phone with no specs)

Edited by user Monday, 2 May 2022 6:54:00 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Thank you. I was like. "What's the chances of that happening". With a head torch I got #1 piston at TDC, the rotor was pointing close to the mark on the distributor, the timing mark was at 9:00 instead of about 11:00.

I painted on a new timing mark but I'm feeling like that is a little pointless if it is moving around.

So I just lined the rotor up with the mark and it seems to be running fine. My fiddling around before reading your post didn't achieve much other that the engine running on when I turned it off.

Interestingly the timing mark is exactly where the people that rewired the car left it. I'm wondering if they couldn't get the new electronic distributor to work because of the the timing mark and things returned to normal once they put the old points ignition back. Who knows?!

Anyway the front seal is leaking a bit so I should just replace all that and try again with the electronic ignition.

Thanks again.

They didn't say, I the k they mentioned it was Chinese. They just commented on the invoice that the car ran poorly, they replaced the fuel and still couldn't get it right, so replaced with the original distributor.

I thought the idle was a little rougher than when I had it rewired so put my timing light on it. As above it was WAY off.

Im not sure if they replaced the coil, cap and leads. I'll have a look at some older engine photos. I know I replaced the coil a few years ago with a non-resistor one because the resistor wire from the ignition key had broken. After that "fix" of mine the car would keep running on accessories!

It now has a new after-market hot rod complete harness.

Edited by user Saturday, 14 May 2022 12:36:06 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified