Sometimes it is the simple things that cause a breakdown. I had booked a half day today (Monday) to recover from the weekend but I have ended up investigating the issue that caused Lizzie to be recovered.
Working through a process of elimination, we whipped off the old distributor cap and leads and replaced them with a set that we had in the spares box. We knew she would run before the change but she would pop and bang under acceleration. Once we had swapped the leads and cap over, we let her warm up and we checked the engine at higher revs. So far so good! No more pops and bangs and a smooth increase of the revs.
Time for a test run! We reversed her out of the garage and down to the end of our cul-de-sac followed by some acceleration (and deceleration) runs. Again all felt good. The next step was a run up the hill, the logic being if she did cut out I stood half a chance of getting her back home!
Back at base, we drained and flushed the radiator, a job I have been meaning to do for a while and I decided to do another test run, this time around the estate. She warmed and cooled as expected and now more incidents of poor running. We are sceptical that the leads/cap were at fault so we are anticipating the fix will not last… watch this space!!!
