Help make my 2.5 petrol waterproof.

Hi. Took my 90 off road for the first time today, other than needing better tyres it didn't do too bad, only thing is being a petrol It HATES water!! A couple of times water splashed to bonnet level and it developed a misfire, obviously got the dizzy wet! It started running fine again when left to dry out.

I'm planning on a universal snorkel kit at some point but for now I need to get the ignition sorted, I can live without the snorkel for a while. I've looked at electronic distributors but then found a 'kit' that replaces the points and condenser in the standard Lucas dizzy and is about 1/3 of the price, are these just as good or do I need a full new dizzy really? Any other tips for waterproofing the ignition system?

Cheers fellas. Craig.

Get a diesel

Even with a fully sealed distributor wet leads can cause misfires.

Not looking for any serious wading shifty, just something that can take a splash. I'm not intending to fully sink the engine. Just want the snorkel as a precaution and something that will keep running if it gets a few drips on it. Haha

Marigold glove over dizzy cap with a lead coming through each finger with a small cable tie, same for coil.

When I was trialing a series petrol used to plaster everything with vaseline, worked very well but messy.Not having a mechanical fan limits splashing.

Cheers men, that's just the sort of thing I was after. Nice one. Any of you have experiance of the electronic dizzy or didn't you bother with it?

You can get spray on silicone that forms a thin waterproof layer.
I've no experience of the electronic distributor gubbins.

Because I kept burning condensers out I got an electronic kit for about £20 that was the best 20 quid I ever spent

Shifty1962 said:

You can get spray on silicone that forms a thin waterproof layer.

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Some say that hair spray does the trick but I've never tried it !

Thanks for replying guys, I'll look into that spray shifty, probably something available in an everyday motor factors thatll do the trick. Nice 1 Jason, looks like that's my plan then.

damp start may help.

What's that mate (sorry for the possibly stupid question)

Sprays can work, but leave a bit of a flakey mess.

I'd try silicon dielectric grease first (like the servisol tubes), smear a bit into the joints and contacts but don't go nuts else it'll pickup all kinds of crap from the engine. I usually clean the terminals with contact cleaner then whack some of the grease on it. Works for me

Vaseline is probably the 'poor mans' version.

Spot on. Cheers guys, sounds like a squirt of that stuff can't hurt. Lol

***CrAiG*** said:

Spot on. Cheers guys, sounds like a squirt of that stuff can't hurt. Lol

Click to expand...

Depends where you squirt it



Sorry......... I'll get my coat

Haha, suppose I asked for that.

TAXI

Lol

hi im having the same problem and im thinking of swapping the 2.25 to a a 200 tdi but they are not as easy to work on so what ive done with mine is ive added a mantec snorkel that helps with the air intake but the same problems apply to the distributor and spark plugs in short ive tried evey thing from plastic bag tied around the dist which worked quite well, but i have now done the following which i got from the website i friend told me about just copy and paste it into google hope this helps
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Thanks mate, will make for some good reading that. Some good ideas already.

The cheap britpart electronic dizzy innards are utter crap (unsurprisingly) - I tried one and it didn't fit properly and broke when being assembled!

I've got a SimonBBC (Electronic Ignition, Home of the Powerspark electronic ignition and electronic distributor) electronic replacement dizzy which seems to work really well.