Steve's Landy

Steve has a 1981, 2 1/4 litre petrol, lightweight. It ages since it was serviced and it up for sale. Steve bought all the bits; plugs, points, condenser, HT leads and a distributor cap. Whilst Steve made a brew I parked Degsy backwards on to the Steve's bonnet. I rigged my basha over the propped up bonnet of Steve's motor and the roof of Degsy. We now had a dryish place to work. We had a test turn over of the motor but it would not fire up, in fact it would hardly crank over. Not a good start. I checked the radiator water, found that it was low so I got Steve to top it before we started.

I took the plugs out then took the distributor off. Steve had not bought a new dissy cap but as it happens it is not in bad shape. The dissy cap was put back on and the HT leads changed for new ones, one at a time. Next was to tackle the points. The screw that holds the points base plate to the dissy base plate was just spinning in its hole. I took the dissy off the engine block to get at the recalcitrant screw. I did want to dismantle the dissy but that is want happened. After much faffing about we got the screw out. I had a rummage in my collection of nuts and bolts. I found the perfect screw to replace the recalcitrant screw. Re-assembling the dissy was a pain. Steve and I did not quite have enough hands to hold the dissy and fit the advance and retard mechanism. It was, however, useful to be able to set the points whilst the dissy was out. 15 minutes of wrestling and it was done. After that it was a fairly straight forward job to re-assemble the dissy. I had been careful to note where everything went. The dissy dropped in, plugs tightened up, HT leads connected.

When cranking the engine, as a test, I saw sparks and smoke coming off the earth strap by the dissy. I took the bolt out and cleaned up the contact area of the strap. With the strap showing bare mettle I refitted the bolt. I made the bolt good and tight. Then the big moment. Steve cranked the engine. The engine turn faster than it ever had before and it fired on the second turn over then it run more or less perfectly. We left the motor running to warm up the engine whilst we tidied up, cleaned the tools and put away the basha. The rain had eased to little by this stage. Steve made another brew and we were done.

Nice landy with lots of extras for sale.