Leyland Car Owners - Problem with the coil

Hi everyone,
: My new Leyland P76 is a Super Six T bar auto which I purchased in December last year.
: The car has fairly low mileage and has been off the road for the past 18 years.
: Before this I owned a Super P76 V8 column auto and a couple of Marinas (4 cylinder).
: What an experience it has been relearning all about my new car.

: I have mixed feelings about the P76 six. First getting use to not having the power of the eight.

: Anyway this article is about a problem that was so simple to fix but finding out about it is the difficult part.
: The symptoms were that at low speed the automatic was always stalling either in reverse or forward motion. I would have to have the choke out and the motor running very fast just to be able to drive the car. In the peek hour traffic you were always putting the car into neutral and the engine would be revving high.

: Anyway I tried moving the timing and adjusting the idle mixture of the SU to get the engine to run smoothly.

: Anyway last weekend I was at my ends and I had contacted the local automatic repairer to see what was causing the car to behave like it did. (There is only one item that physically changes the performance of the auto and that is the kick down cable).
: A friend Rick who was a mechanic many years before came over and we discussed what was happening. Some thoughts were that the oil need to be changed in the auto , the auto had blocked valves etc.

: The first thing Rick suggested was to see if the problem occurred in the lowest gear, that being first gear.
: He took the car for a drive while I made him a cup of coffee. On his return he indicated that the car worked well in low gear so the problem may not be the automatic after all.

: He suggested that the problem maybe with the timing or electrics. I was having a problem with the timing and fuel so that may be logical.
: With that in mind Rick suggested starting with the cheapest item first.
: So off to AutoOne accessory shop, as I did not have a spare coil in my supplies.
: I purchased a new Bosch sports type coil.
: On fitting the new coil the car became a manageable machine.
: I was able to back the car out of the driveway and back into the driveway with no stalling problems.
: So to finish the job we needed to tune the car.
: I have had this dwell-tacho meter in my collection of equipment for year, so I got it out and set it up on the coil and checked the dwell and revs.
: Checking the manual found the dwell figures but no instructions on how to adjust this setting. We had no idea right then (Senior moment) or what this meant. After some time speculating we found an old automotive text book which described the meaning of dwell and how it is used.
: Do you know how it works?
: For you out there it is the time the points are closed so as to control the discharge the coil. i.e.: Smaller the gap of the points the lower the dwell.
: After trial and testing we got the dwell right ( 36 degrees) and then adjusted the timing to 10 degrees BTC.
: The engine became smoother and with a slight adjustment of the engine revs the car has been marvelous.
: I hope this is helpful
: Yowee

Leyland P76 Owners 2005

Technical Information

My old Coil