Ever jumped in your Land Rover and gotten this prediction?
Such a classic picture from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985). Before Pee-wee took his bike out for a ride, he checked his fortune. You know the rest of the story….there’s no basement in the Alamo, Pee-wee’s prophetic words (YouTube), “There are things you wouldn’t understand, things you couldn’t understand, things…you shouldn’t understand.”
As Dottie (played by 80s icon Elizabeth Daily) replies “I don’t understand.” I know EXACTLY what you mean Dottie, I don’t understand. I don’t understand what’s going on with my ignition system. I’ve tried many…many solutions to solve this problem.
The problem, when the engine gets warmed up the ignition module does something that causes the coil to overheat. And when the coil overheats, the engine stops getting spark and the engine dies, leaves you stranded, and frustrates you to no end.
At the time of this video I jumped on RangeRovers.net forum and saw several posts of guys dealing with very similar issues. Some of them have gone to replacing the distributor and dealing with all those issues. I’m not afraid to swap to a new replacement distributor.
Atlantic British lists the Pertronix Flame Thrower for 459.95$(US). Summit offers a Davis Unified Ignition 96920 in four colors. I’ve never even heard of this company, or anyone ever using their distributor. At 575.99$(US) I’m not sure about that.
I installed the relocation kit about 15 years ago when these issues raised their ugly heads the first time. I ran that setup until about 3 years ago when we tried the GM replacement experiment and the Lucas Ignition module Part Duex experiment (both failed). Three years before that, I replaced the stock coils with PerTronix Flame-Thrower Ignition Coils. I got good service out of those but ultimately they failed. I damaged the distributor so much sorting this out I had to have it replaced. A used distributor was installed. Mostly due to cost right at the same time I was trying to close a house and move back to my hometown.
I was chastised in some forum posts when I posted I’d just chuck the whole thing and replace it with a motor from a LR3 (Discovery 3, elsewhere in the world). There are thousands of Range Rover Classics motoring about on original ignition systems. So why am I getting these failures?
I’ve consulted people WAY, WAY smarter than me and we can’t come up with a reason for the failures. The frustration of not being able to take my Range Rover more than 2 miles from Okierover Base Camp is super frustrating.
I’m going to try a coil with high resistance next. I understand the coil for a 1971 Ford Mustang 351 Boss. 25$(US) at O’Reilly’s Auto has a high resistance. The 351 is a points ignition. And it’s a cheap test. If that fails…I’m looking at a Pertronix swap, or perhaps a diesel engine swap…I’m pretty sure either of them will be equally frustrating to get in place.
As always your comments are very much appreciated.
Thanks for reading, and Happy Rovering.
