1973 850 spider No Spark

Carb drip tray. Discussed on this board a couple of years ago. Fuel can leak out of the carb if the needle valve is faulty, or too much pressure. If it wasn't important, why do you think FIAT would go the expense of putting them on millions of cars? Not just 850's.
 
lezesig1 said:
David,
Au Contraire.......Ducellier 4209A fitted on mine. It took a few to make one good one <wink>

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Carb drip tray mandatory requirement ? Huh ? What has you spooked ?

I've seen many 850's without them, including mine. Where is the errant fuel supposedly leaking from ???

Thanks upfront for any insight on this one.
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You miss my meaning. Marelli was the brand that made the Brits proud of Lucas.
 
Les, after reading online about the DIC ;), I did 2 things, Sourced a 30 DGS on euro ebay and modded the intake manifold per John Edwards youtube videos. Same as what you did. All the emissions plumbing is gone. Car runs great. Yep, needle valve=shut off.
 
It’s been a few weeks. Thanks for all your thoughts and hints. I replaced the ignition just because, it’s 50 years old. Didn’t help my spark issue but I really didn’t think it would.
The carb doesn’t have a drip tray because I replaced the stock carb with a Weber 32 ich. The stock one was all sort of messed up and a rebuild wasn’t going to cut it. So the drip pan wouldn’t work on this set up.
Still don’t have spark. I have voltage at the cap but I’m wondering if I have the proper cap and rotor for the distributor. How do I tell if my distributor is Marelli or Ducellier? And / or what electronic distributor is best to replace this one with? I have read enough posts related to Marelli not being the most reliable, and would rather not get stuck on the side of the road if possible.
again, that’s guys for walking me through this. My other car is a NC Miata that I never have to worry about even with the track ready parts I’ve installed on it so this little Fiat has been a learning process.
Merry Christmas
 
1. Curious which model carb you are using. If you are using the stock manifold, the drip tray will fit. You will need to think about the jetting on this carb.
2. Says on the side of the distributor the model.
3. There isn't an electronic distributor made for the 850. A marelli plex for the Autobianchi A112 may fit. Midwest has this conversion https://www.midwest-bayless.com/p-2...rtronix-fiat-850-with-ducellier-dist-new.aspx. but this is not your problem right now. It will be many months before you are ready for a car trip. I would stay within pushing back to garage distance.
4. Do you actually have spark from the ignition coil to cap wire and ground? I don't know what you mean " voltage at the cap"? AFAIK the marelli and ducellier caps are not interchangeable.
5. Did you check the distributor timing at TDC? Do you know if at TDC the rotor is pointing to #1 on the cap?
6. You ain't going to fix this beast by throwing parts at it. You need to focus on diagnostics.
7. I wouldn't buy any more parts until you figure out whats wrong. I would certainly want the engine running and do a compression test before I spent another nickel.
8 I assume you will be feeding fresh clean gas to the carb from a gas can, not the gas tank.
 
dnudelman said:
1. Curious which model carb you are using. If you are using the stock manifold, the drip tray will fit. You will need to think about the jetting on this carb.
2. Says on the side of the distributor the model.
3. There isn't an electronic distributor made for the 850. A marelli plex for the Autobianchi A112 may fit. Midwest has this conversion https://www.midwest-bayless.com/p-2...rtronix-fiat-850-with-ducellier-dist-new.aspx. but this is not your problem right now. It will be many months before you are ready for a car trip. I would stay within pushing back to garage distance.
4. Do you actually have spark from the ignition coil to cap wire and ground? I don't know what you mean " voltage at the cap"? AFAIK the marelli and ducellier caps are not interchangeable.
5. Did you check the distributor timing at TDC? Do you know if at TDC the rotor is pointing to #1 on the cap?
6. You ain't going to fix this beast by throwing parts at it. You need to focus on diagnostics.
7. I wouldn't buy any more parts until you figure out whats wrong. I would certainly want the engine running and do a compression test before I spent another nickel.
8 I assume you will be feeding fresh clean gas to the carb from a gas can, not the gas tank.
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You really know your stuff sir and I’m very much trying to learn. From what I can tell the rotor only goes on one way. I’ll try to find the TDC marks tomorrow and see if it lines up on 1. I am wondering about the cap and rotor still. When I place the rotor inside the cap and look at the distance between the contacts it’s seems too far. There’s around 1/8-3/16” of space. I thought they were supposed to just touch to forward spark to the plugs. I bought all the parts from Midwest Bayless and thought they were correct but there are a few options, maybe I screwed up.
I agree, I’d rather not keep throwing good money at a ghost. I’m just finding I’m not much of a mechanic. Maybe the rotor isn’t in the proper position. Thanks for the help.
 
Its possible you have the wrong rotor, although I doubt it. Get the model number off the side of the distributor and check it.

My first project car was a 1959 Alfa Romeo Giulietta. The dealer told me to call this guy Jay Nuxoll in the Alfa Club. Jay said "The italians screw these cars together by hand, and they're not all that smart. If they can do it, you can too." Thats how I started to learn about cars. Apologies to my Italian friends.
 
Well Merry day after Christmas!!! So I had some time today to tinker and found a few things that I had wrong that lead to my issue. I had the points way too open, adjusted them again. Located TDC and set distributor according and light tested the points to allow spark at the earliest time. Low and behold it started up. It smokes like a chimney but it started and idled, roughly, but idled. Now I’ve got to figure out why all the grey / blue smoke.
 
1. don't you wish you had purchased that dwell meter. Try local Goodwill or Salvation Army.
2. You will need a timing light to properly set timing advance, but not with smoke coming out the back.
3. Is the smoke coming out the exhaust, or oil burning off the exhaust pipe, or both?
4. after the motor cools down, pull the #1 spark plug and post photo here.
5. What color is the smoke?
 
I’ll need to purchase both the timing light and dwell meter for sure. On my list of to dos. The smoke was grey mostly. If I reved it it would occasionally get a little carbon black look. I’ll grab the spark plug pic tomorrow. I’m running super / premium fuel and all the fluids are new.
again, thanks for sharing your expertise.
 
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It’s a brand new Facet Cube from Midwest Bayless. I’m not sure how to determine what the output is at but it was supposed to be ideal for this car.
 
Okay, I'm back. Lost my father two weeks ago and married off the first niece on my wife's side last week so I've not been into the car so much. Update - It started up and almost idled. I've had to fabricate a choke cable bracket as the 32 ICH is backwards to the original Weber carb. Got that done today. Now, I need to replace the choke and throttle cables. Maybe it'll idle once the choke isn't wide open.
 
Smajeski said:
Okay, I'm back. Lost my father two weeks ago and married off the first niece on my wife's side last week so I've not been into the car so much. Update - It started up and almost idled. I've had to fabricate a choke cable bracket as the 32 ICH is backwards to the original Weber carb. Got that done today. Now, I need to replace the choke and throttle cables. Maybe it'll idle once the choke isn't wide open.
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Sorry for your loss. The car can wait or be an outlet to occupy yourself.
 
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