pertronix failure?

[chume]

finally had time to sort out ignition on my 67 mini cooper after sitting for couple months. it died on way to work last fall :-(

traced it to the pertronix EI. I had a spare one that i was planning on putting in my disco van and popped it in. Started right up. Anyone else have these fail? It only had about 2,000 miles (about three years). kind of pricey to carry an extra one around.....

[Dixminion]

Cliff,
The Pertronix units are sensitive to current, limited to 4 amps for a 4 cylinder motor. The current is determined by the resistance in the primary windings of your coil. Your coil should read about 3 ohms for cars without a ballast resistor and about 2.25 ohms for a car with a ballast resistor. If you happen to have a coil with 1.5 oms resistance then the Pertronix is drawing 8 amps, too much for the poor thing. God forbid that all coils would be labeled for resistance, you may have to measure yours.
As a cheap spare I carry a breaker plate complete with points and condensor to swap out with my Pertronix breaker plate. I've done it roadside twice, neither time was the Pertronix at fault.

Don

[Cheleker]

The Pertronix with LU part numbers also doesn't like to have the ignition left on without the car running. This makes static timing for the 23/25D type distributors a little more risky! The problem is not present in the 9LU Mk II version.

[chume]

I have been using the pertronix flamethrower coil (3 ohm) and it checked out ok (although i tried switching this as well initially). at least on minimania site, i dont see a 23d (cooper s, neg ground conversion) ignitor II? I have been pretty careful about not leaving ignition on since I installed the initial pertronix. The failure was not gradual- I was happily driving along and ignition shut down. With no spark, was hopeful that it might be a low tension wire dropped off, but no such luck.

[Dixminion]

Lucas rotors have been known to deliver spark directly to the distributor shaft instead of the four towers of the distributor cap. Try a new rotor.

Don