With fault capasitor, points can wear extremely fast beyond non-working condition. Really. Those capasitors what all of us who has tinkered with 2CV's before late 90's, should be put them to shed and take them now back. I remember at some point, every time with oil change, also put new points and capasitor, and throw old ones to trash. Those all capasitors, were much better than what we can buy now...

Sad, very sad...


Good to hear Your 2CV is now again working like should..!

Thanks Jasu.

Yes indeed, when the car was around 15 years old, I was being proactive with maintenance and thought I'd better change the capacitor. I really wish I hadn't!

I keep about 10 of them in the car for quick changes now...

In the old 2cv's i have capacitors that are 30+ years in already and i don't know how old they were already... The 6 volt capacitors are a lot bigger than the 12 volt ones.
but tey salo need to have a good contact to the earth.

Find yourself a used lumenition. You will never need to touch it again

Is that electronic ignition Roger? I'm not a fan. Although is this particular model one that pre-dates the bad quality electronics problem?

Oh my gosh. It's back to its normal self. Oddly turbine like for such a weeny motor. It holds an easy 63mph cruising and goes up motorway hills in top gear at 60mph again. No longer a hazard to HGV's!

This must've been such a gradual slide. I've only been suspicious after the last two Devon trips. The last one in particular saw me using second gear on the motorway. Poor little car!

Anyway it's super perky again now, so yay!

Lumeniition is a very simple ignition system.
It replaces the points and condenser with an optical sensor and chopper, and then an amplifier..
Mine must be 30 years old. I have never heard of one failing.

Well that does sound good actually.

The modern ones seem to fail. In fact the excellent Bentley mechanic who maintains our S3 recently returned it to points after 'upgrading' it to electronic ignition a while ago. I went faulty. But I just assumed it was the cheap electronics problem, which is the same reason I can't find reliable condensors any more.

I don't how effective a normal radio capacitor will be. Value should be 0,22 uF, voltage over the max your alternator will deliver (about 20 volts or more). i don't know how resistant against weather exposure and vibrations this will be. But worth a try. They don't cost much. It maybe might be installed somewhere away of the engine?

^There is much higher voltage peaks at capasitor, than 12 volts. With coil on circuit, and when contacts breaks the contact (as they do once per revolution), the coil induces the spark voltage and also there is high voltage at low voltage side. That is easily near, or even over hundred volts there...

If You like tinkering and hassling with parts, You can make well reliable ignition with original advance -mechanism. Like what I made about two decades ago, and put to my Dyane just after WM Sweden in 2007. Bought an electronic distributor (from Lada Samara, all parts made in USA by Micro Switch), cut the four window trigger wheel to two window, mounted trigger wheel to part what operates points, drilled the trigger box to have that trigger wheel to fit trough, made new plate where to mount the HALL -sensor (those parts from inside of distributor) and that's it. Put ignition amplifier (Bosch compatible, cheap and easy to find) on wiring loom what came with dizzy, adjusted ignition (put little LED also to new made cover), and totally forget that...

Only to do with that ignition, has been when to move it to next engine. For now, it is on fourth engine after 2007, and done a lot of driving. The Dyane was daily driver back then, and have put well over 200000 km, with injection all the time, when mace my 4x4 Dyane I just swapped the engine from my first Dyane and continue driving with 4x4. Never missed a beat...

I have photos of making that ignition somewhere, I'll try to find them and put here..?