[DeTomaso] MSD failure update....

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

Hi guys,

An update on my situation from yesterday:

Jim Seiferling, who has plenty of electrical/ignition smarts, came over this 
afternoon and re-troubleshot the system; all clues pointed to a bad MSD box.  
It was solidly bolted to the firewall, as far from the motor as possible (but 
still rather close).

Zipped out to Kragen's and bought a new box; with my military discount it was 
only about $20 more than it would have been from Summit--a small price to pay 
for right-now service.

The rubber isolators are intended to be slipped through a piece of sheetmetal 
(firewall etc) and secured on the back side with nuts, and then bolts thread 
into the outside of them to secure the MSD box.  I have a double-firewall on 
my car, so the inside isn't accessible.  This would have been a perfect 
application for Rivnuts, but I didn't have any lying about, so instead I 
hacked the 
stud-end off the bushings and drilled them out, then we mounted the box using 
#8 
sheetmetal screws (which is how the old box was mounted, minus the bushings). 
 
It is now isolated both from vibration, and from radiant heat.  The stainless 
steel firewall absorbs as well as reflects heat, and that heat would 
undoubtedly be transmitted to the MSD box; having it stand off by a half inch or so 
can only do it good.

The car fired right up once all the wires were hooked up--hooray!

We then tackled anomolies with my front turn signals and marker lights.  We 
finally managed to get both of them working properly.  The driver's side was 
malfunctioning because there was no bulb installed (DOH!!!!) and the 
passenger's 
side was dorked up because the wires from the harness to the light had been 
hooked up incorrectly; the turn signal element was lit with the running light 
circuit, and the running light element with the turn signal circuit.

We discovered these things only after we had chased wires, opened up 
electrical connectors, shot everything in sight with WD40, etc. etc.  We wound up 
wasting a couple of hours looking for complicated causes for what turned out to be 
very simple problems, but at least I *know* the system is good now.

That's today, however, and this *is* a 35-year-old Italian car, after 
all...so no promises about tomorrow!

Mike<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> See what's free at 
http://www.aol.com.</HTML>