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Fiat 128. Don't laugh. They were purchased new for well under $2000 each,--
and they were a lot of fun to drive. But the 4-cylinder engines were
fairly
high-compression and ran at fairly high rpm. The composite fiberboard
portion of the "points" that rubbed on the distributor cam would wear down
quickly, and this required a timing adjustment. The electrical contacts on
the points also wore quickly, and this required replacement of the points.
I used to adjust the timing at each 3000-mile oil change, and I replaced
the
points at alternate oil changes. I did not have a timing light, so I
pushed
the car in gear to get the timing mark to the right place, then I used an
ohmmeter to show me when the points opened as I twisted the distributor
back
and forth.
Points and condenser (capacitor) were inexpensive and didn't take long to
replace, but I was too cheap and too lazy to replace the capacitor. I
guess
I figured a capacitor would have infinite life. I guessed wrong. My wife
got stranded at the one-room country school where she was the teacher.
(I'm
not kidding about the one-room school in order to imply this is ancient
history. From 1974 to 1976 my wife was the only teacher in a one-room
school west of Lansing, Michigan where she had about 20 students from
kindergarten to seventh grade.) She got stranded after dark on a winter
night and had to call me to rescue her. (The school did have electricity,
running water, and a telephone.) I drove the other Fiat to the school, but
couldn't figure out the problem and couldn't get her car started, so a
parent of one of her school kids towed the car to the nearest service
station with his tractor.
The next day the mechanic diagnosed the problem as a failed condenser, and
he asked me how come the points looked brand new but the condenser looked
like it had been there forever. I explained that the condenser had been
there for a long time because I only ever changed the points. He said,
"Why
in the world would you replace the points and not replace the condenser at
the same time. Don't you know the car won't run if the condenser fails?"
Well, I hadn't thought about it until then, so this country mechanic gave
me
a little physics lesson about how the condenser and coil work as an LC
oscillator set off by the collapsing magnetic field in the coil when the
points open. I felt pretty silly for not knowing that, and I felt pretty
silly for not paying about $1 for a new condenser every time I changed the
points. Since the distributor cap and rotor were already removed to
replace
the points, I could have replaced the condenser in less than 30 seconds. I
definitely paid the mechanic more than I ever saved by not replacing the
condenser every 6000 miles.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Chair, Division of Natural and Applied Sciences
Bluffton University
1 University Drive
Bluffton, OH 45817
419.358.3270 (office)
edmiston@bluffton.edu