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  Oct. 8, 2008 3:54 a.m. Tiger_DFT None

  Driving my Tiger today, from Perth to Busselton, lovely country drive of 2.5 hours. Get half way and the engine stops dead - just like the ignition was turned off?

  The tacho dropped to 0 rpm, and the oil pressure to 0!!! Uh oh....

  Pulled distrbutor out on side of road....I could spin rotor button?

  The cam drive gear dowel/rawl pin had sheared...this is after sitting on 3000rpm for an hour.

  I fitted a Pertronix distributor approx 1000 miles ago as I thought the original Ford Distributor (with points) shoild e retired (like me).

  Got towed by my wife to our beach house where I fitted another drive pin and now carry one spare in my wallet.....

  I now have 2/3rd's of the old drive pin on my work bench and 1/3rd in my sump....drat! I have put a powerful magnet on the outside of my sump next to my sump plug and also have a magnet on my sump plug....hopefully this will catch the offending pin.

  Maybe I should have stuck with the points!! Or,not fitted a high volume oil pump!

  Cheers to all David Tweddle Perth - WA.

  ps....Good to see the CM Tiger on the road....do you have a Pertronix distributor?

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  Oct. 8, 2008 5:28 p.m. rconlon Reader

  I was also out for a Sunday run to a state park near Watonga, Oklahoma. Great day and great roads. Suddenly, I lost all power and pulled over with the engine at a perfect idle. I had lost my accelerator connection. It was on in a jiffy before the song ended but was caused by the last thing I had done one week earlier. I must have pushed the locking clip off the ball while I was adding oil to the steering box. Losing that clip would have not been nice. Cheers Ron

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  Oct. 8, 2008 11:34 p.m. David S. Wallens Editorial Director

  I have a good breakdown story. About 12 years ago my Rabbit GTI just died at a red light and wouldn't restart. Traffic started to back up behind me. I looked up and saw a Grassroots Motorsports logo in my rear-view mirror. Turns out that a friend, who at the time owned a Porsche repair shop and raced a Rabbit, was behind me. (He was wearing a Grassroots Motorsports T-shirt.) The car eventually restarted, and he took it back to his shop, which was conveniently located next to our office. The culprit: The ignition switch was going.

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  Oct. 9, 2008 7:30 a.m. Tim Baxter Online Editor

  I think my all-time favorite (or least favorite) breakdown story was when I had my VW Squareback. I was helping my grandmother move when the rear hatch latch failed, dumping her belongings all over the intersection of 7th Street and Camelback in Phoenix. That's a pretty busy intersection, too.

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  Oct. 9, 2008 9:55 a.m. bikesnrovers New Reader

  17 odd years ago my soon-to-be wife and I were traveling from Montana to California to pick up a new tandem bicycle from the builder in Sebastipol (sp). As were were crossing the desert of Nevada on state highways our Volvo 145 coughed and died. I popped the hood check all the wires, checked the clear in-line fuel filter (mostly empty) and checked that the air filter was clear (Weber cannon kit). I decided it was vapor lock.

  I pulled one end of the fuel line off, either the carb or the filter, and it, well, farted.

  I got it into the next little town and instead of going to a garage, where Margie thought I would have headed, I went to a grocery store. I came out with a roll of aluminum foil and wrapped the fuel line with several loose layers. Not a problem for the rest of the trip.

  And I was a hero in my beloved's eyes! (double points!)

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  Oct. 9, 2008 11:30 a.m. KaptKaos Reader

  Early 90s and I was coming back from West Virginia with my girlfriend (now wife) in my 1st Gen RX7. Coming out of a rest stop in PA, I revved and bounced it off the limiter in 1st, went to pull back to second and couldn't slot into 2nd.
  

  Pull over, look all around and under the car. No leaks, nothing obvious. Put the car in neutral, starts right up. Try to go to first and it grinds.
  

  Shut it off, put it in first and start it, and we're moving. I match revs and can shift. We drive back to Jersey with no clutch for over 200 miles.

  Tear down afterwards showed that the clutch disc basically shattered.
  

  My wife tells me later that's when she figured out that she'd marry me.

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  Oct. 9, 2008 2:11 p.m. Greg Voth Associate Publisher

  1st gen RX-7s have a limiter??? Not any that I have owned.
  

  I had a clutch blow up on the 1-2 shift as well. Only had about 700 miles on the clutch at the time. No one decided to marry me after that although my girlfriend loves (or at least tolerates) the three current RX-7s.

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  Oct. 9, 2008 3:57 p.m. KaptKaos Reader

  It would stop revving at about 8500 iirc. It was 1992, so that was a while ago.

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  Oct. 10, 2008 7:28 a.m. Tim Suddard Publisher

  Yes, I am using a Pertronix distributor. Just completed a 1000 mile rally and drove the car onto the trailer. Yeah!

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  Oct. 10, 2008 10:26 a.m. MustangSix Reader

  I've seen this happen on a couple of Ford V8's.

  If a chuck-'o-crap gets past the oil pickup and into the gears, it can jam the oil pump. the thing that usually happens is the hex shaft will twist apart.
  

  If the oil pump driveshaft survives, the next weak link is the roll pin on the distributor gear. If that is strong enough, the distributor gear would strip.
  

  Anyway, point is that after you closely check out the distributor, you probably need to drop the pan and check the pump to make sure the real problem isn't down there.

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  Oct. 10, 2008 10:39 a.m. Greg Voth Associate Publisher

  I am just yanking your chain. As far as I know they will rev until they blow but stockports generally run out of breath around 8k.

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  Oct. 14, 2008 6:53 p.m. thesnibborddot None

  I'll never forget the time my wife and I were coming back down south frm Tawas Mi to home and my 1965 Barracuda quit running . Just fresh out of the Marines at the time I really didn't have a pot to pi$$ in let alone have the car towed and fixed . Luckily all it was , was the ceramic resistor on the firewall that had went bad . Thanks to my boss at the time , he ame up from Bay City and towed the car to his shop for free . Sort of free . I owed him some extra hours putting lift kits on four wheel drives .I later sold the car for $300.00 when the torque converted bolts came loose and was incorrectly diagnosed as a really bad rod knock .

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  Oct. 14, 2008 9:38 p.m. KaptKaos Reader

  Greg,

  It might have been a buzzer. Iirc, that thing had a buzzer when you went over a certain rpm. It's been almost 20 years since it happened, so I'll throw myself to the mercy of the rotary. BTW: it was a stock port. =)

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  Oct. 16, 2008 8:58 a.m. Greg Voth Associate Publisher

  Yeah they buzz like someone is honking at you once you hit 6700. A lot of people find it annoying, I figure it is like a shift light. More like a shift "suggestion" to my streetport.

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  Oct. 17, 2008 8:26 a.m. Jensenman UltimaDork

  Stock ported rotaries will run out of breath around 8K but will rev past that. The buzzer was there mainly so the driver wouldn't fling the belts off! I used to use my 1st gen's buzzer like a shift light as well. On the Abomination, when the power flattens out and the engine note gets that hollow buzz tone it's time to shift. According to my super accurate Smiths tach that's at about 7800 RPM.

  Racing Beat says that continued revving past 8500 will bend the stationary gears which is A Bad Thing.

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  Oct. 24, 2008 7:55 p.m. cyncrvr New Reader

  Ya I knew a guy who autocrossed a RX7. He claimed if the buzzer wasn't on he down shifted so it was. In other words, it was always on.

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