Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 6:13 am Post subject: M38 trouble shooting
Had the jeep out running fine. Parked it in the driveway. When I went to put it away and it was running very roughly. ???
Fuel supply is fine. I put in new plugs, points & condenser. Now it won't start. Thinking coil, but wonder about capacitor. If the capacitor went bad, would it just stop running?
Joined: Jun 14, 2006 Posts: 226 Location: Wijnegem Belgium Europe
Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 10:42 am Post subject:
I had probelms with the capacitor, they had a short lifetime, a bad capacitor is no ignition or very unregulary. No power at all, just bad idling.
Do a test and replace it with another one. Check the opening between the contacts and see if they close and open while turning the engine.
just a tip
Erik _________________ 1942 GPW 71336 my son's jeep restored now
1951 M38 MC11891
1953 VW beetle (genuine german Käfer )
1957 fantastic wife
Most folks do not have a capacitor/condenser tester handy. A rough check can be made using a regular Ohm meter. You place one probe on the unit's case and one on it's input terminal. The meter should slowly build up a resistance reading which will peak and then drop quickly to "0" resistance. If it doesn't then reverse the test leads and try again. If it still doesn't then it's bad. _________________ Wes K
45 MB, 51 M38, 54 M37, 66 M101A1, 60 CJ5, 76 DJ5D, 47Bantam T3-C & 5? M100
Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 10:22 am Post subject: M38 trouble shooting
Well the M38 is back running fine. Turned out to be the distributor cap. Looks fine and I cannot see where it failed. However I had power through to the points, but no spark at the #1 plug.
So I took an old rotor and distributor cap (I guess it might have been the rotor, but I doubt it) and replaced them. Jeep started right up.
I run it a bit and then check timing, dwell, etc.
I'll also need to pickup new replacements. Thanx to all who offered help,
Joined: Nov 22, 2006 Posts: 36 Location: Van Wych, SC
Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 5:13 pm Post subject:
Gentlemen;
It looks like I am having the same type problem. Our Jeep has been running like a champ since we fixed the starter in January of 2008. I have had a few backfires through the tailpipe, but I thought it was the carburetor adjustments.
A week ago it started fine, but cut off several times during warm up. It acted like it was flooded. It started back up several times and then I put it back into the garage.
This weekend, it cranks and tries to turn over, but will not. I have new batteries so I was able to crank it several times. Still no joy. I have not touched the distributor since we bought the Jeep five years ago. I am not sure when the distributor was last maintained or repaired. It sounds like I probably needs a new rotor and capacitor.
My question is...which suppliers might have these parts?
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