Condenser life span

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Alan Hall
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Re: Condenser life span

#31 Post by Alan Hall »

Richard, My experience with the current condensers failing......they would not have driven in running poorly, they would have been towed in not running!

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Mervyn Hyde
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Re: Condenser life span

#32 Post by Mervyn Hyde »

"I threw away a lot of perfectly good condensers" Maybe Richard. I have a couple of the GB505 Bosch ones in their boxes still and they might 'see me out'. But the newer ones don't inspire confidence. I am going to get one of these and have a play.
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David Jones
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Re: Condenser life span

#33 Post by David Jones »

Found this on a web search. We have it better than the Brit car guys but I knew that which is why I have Porsches.
http://www.nonlintec.com/sprite/cap_failure/
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Re: Condenser life span

#34 Post by David Jones »

Merv, found the equivalent over here. I will be interested to hear how they perform though I must admit I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of capacitor failures I have had in my lifetime and as to Richards comments on replacing the capacitor as a service item maybe that is why they did not fail because they were not on the car long enough to fail and now it is a part that never gets replaced until it does fail. Should be a cautionary reminder to carry a spare capacitor if you run one. Because I could need to reconnect one if my Permatune should fail it is still in place on my distributors but the wire is "swinging in the wind".
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Cor ... BtEALw_wcB
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Mervyn Hyde
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Re: Condenser life span

#35 Post by Mervyn Hyde »

Yes David, the old Lucas parts are almost gone and Bosch has stopped making some of the early Porsche ones I hear from my supplier. My distributor guy here who does the 1910-1970 car ignition, just bought 3 pallets of old Bosch condensers, rotors, distributor plates, coils and points. Now he is my best friend!

On the Mouser capacitors I was looking also at the maximum voltage range and picked up to 1000VDC. I guess 400 would be heaps. In the meantime my spares bag has a new condenser with easy clips soldered on as a roadside back up.
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Mark Roth
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Re: Condenser life span

#36 Post by Mark Roth »

Don't need no stinkin' condenser. I am using the Pazon transistor ignition which is no longer made. This Gammatronix unit seems to be available:
https://gammatronixltd.com/epages/bae94 ... ER%206v%22
PS. I have had a Pertronix 6v unit fail to start.
Last edited by Mark Roth on Mon Aug 14, 2017 7:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mervyn Hyde
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Re: Condenser life span

#37 Post by Mervyn Hyde »

Is this similar in operation to the older 6V Permatune that David uses?

Also I note that there is a different wiring needed if you have a 'ballasted coil". Does the regulator have a ballasting function on the T6B?
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Re: Condenser life span

#38 Post by David Jones »

Merv, the Permatune is a Capacitive Discharge Ignition system which amplifies the voltage applied to the coil as well as quenching the spark and reducing the current flow through the points. I can run a 43 thou plug gap and still have a good spark at 5 volts cranking.
This Gammatronix is similar to the Crane Cams XR3000 in that it just uses the points as a signal to trigger a sharp waveform cut off to the coil to induce a fatter spark instead of a build up triggered by collapsing the coil flux by opening the points and discharging the capacitor which discharges in opposition to the coil voltage circuit thereby quenching the spark.
You are still running an inductive ignition circuit in all cases unlike a lot of modern systems which do away with coils and just use CDI which has a faster discharge time which is better for high rpm engines.
Believe it or not but Nikola Tesla designed such a system in 1910 but did not have todays electronics to make full use of it.
Google "Kettering ignition" for a more in depth explanation.
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Re: Condenser life span

#39 Post by Mervyn Hyde »

Sounds like the MSD I run on my 911, in some ways. David, is there a ballasting function on the regulator of a 356 T6 that would mean different type of connection?
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Re: Condenser life span

#40 Post by David Jones »

I believe all MSD ignition systems are 12 volt so as far as I am aware there is no ballast. You are correct in that the MSD is a CDI unit. I have a complete 12 volt MSD system including twin point distributor and tach adapter with all springs to re-curve the distributor if anyone needs it.
The Crane system does need a ballast as I found out to my cost when I installed one on a friends car without one and he left the ignition turned on. Unlike the Permatune which does not care if it is left on, the Crane Cams system just overheated and melted the coil on to the engine.
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Re: Condenser life span

#41 Post by Jules Dielen »

My brake light switch 'made in Brazil' lasted exactly 42 miles.
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Re: Condenser life span

#42 Post by David Jones »

For the hell of it I went and laid out all my spare distributor condensers and distributors not in use and measured all the condensers with my multimeter which has a capacitance measuring function.
I measured a total of 14 and they varied between a high of 0.359 micro farads and a low of 0.211. The average was 0.258 so there was a bias toward the higher 200's.
There were only 3 countries where they were made of those that had a country of manufacture that could be discerned. One from Portugal, one from Turkey and 4 from Germany with one that said Blue streak and an internet search found such for a Harley Davidson application sold on E-bay in Germany but made in the USA.
This may not help those who had failures but seeing as many of these look original I am guessing the failure rate of the older condensers was not high. The date codes on the base of the Bosch manufactured ones had the year code of 4, 2, 1, 5, 3, and 4 so I will surmise they were all from the sixties. Those ranged from 0.274 to 0.293 in mF. Closer than any others in measurement.
Last edited by David Jones on Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Brad Ripley
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Re: Condenser life span

#43 Post by Brad Ripley »

David, you say 359, 211 etc. The spec (W/S Manual pg L86) is 0.27 to 0.32 micro farads . It's my understanding that any reading outside of those numbers (either low or high) indicates a bad condenser.

Suggest change the range on your multimeter to get the decimal point in the right place.

Perhaps Ab Tiedemann, Bruce Smith, John Jenkins can add comments about condensers they use in their distributor restorations.

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Re: Condenser life span

#44 Post by David Jones »

Brad you are correct, I did not put the decimal point in the correct place. I was just writing down the numbers from the display which took it to the next digit. The range I chose gave me 3 digits so more unnecessary accuracy I guess.
I will have to check the high ones and see if they come in spec using a higher range.
I will however edit and change the numbers on my original past so as not to sow confusion for future readers.
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Thomas Frisardi
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Re: Condenser life span

#45 Post by Thomas Frisardi »

Does anyone know of a Delco equivalent? There seem to be lots of NOS Delco parts out there.

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