Ken - pretty much what I said wasn't it?

Don't really know, as the points were fitted when I put the Aca-Dyane together back in '96, when I was doing over 20,000 miles per year, but the speedometer stopped working when it had reached 220,000 miles.

As a quick fix, I fitted a GS speedometer on the parcel shelf.
It's still there, as are that set of points I put in the engine 16 years ago...

ken

Crikey ken 220,000!! I am amazed sureley not on the same barrels and pistons

Rebored barrels and a set of the Kolbenschmidt 0.5mm oversize pistons in '96, so halfway house?

Still amazing tho I love claims to galactic mileages especially with simple engines, the BMW boxer engines do phenomenal mileages to.

I'll just put this out there.. My original comment was about looking after the point etc.. Ill confess I've not even had the fan off my ami and I've done nearly 10000km..

I never understand it when people say that points and condensers are troublesome and need changing or resetting every five minutes. I did about 15000 miles in Russ's old Ami without touching the points, and I don't know how far he'd gone on them before I bought it. It was still on the same set when I sold it on ... besides, it's hardly an issue to take the fan off and change the points, and it gives you a chance to check and clean the oil cooler while you're in there, which is a thing that might otherwise get neglected.
I've got 123 on the beige Dyane, which I'll probably replace with points once I get it back on the road, purely because I know where I am with them.

Fair point rhythm thief, I remember my old charlestons oil cooler was caked!

Reason is when people replace the points many forget to grease the cam (bakelite resting block). It takes about 2-3000 clicks before the bakelite block wears down changing the points gab which in return alters the timming. The motor is then hard to start with all sorts of trouble following. No wonder points gives people the shits, hence the popular electronic ignitions. No gab or advance to deal with. Add crappy condensors and you have a recipe for disaster. However proper installed and adjusted points will run for 15.000 min, are dirt cheap and to a point reliable. All that yellow coil nonesense and electronic ignition is merely a sympton for badly understood points.

tbh i fell for the yellow coil trick.. but my trip to salbris with three other cars (but 4 engines) i was however the only one not to have to swap to a spare coil. Having said that, the only reason i have one in the first place is 'cause mine cooked(having left the ign on :/) and the spare had snapped a terminal, so i was fortunate to have a father who said 'just sling that on, see how you go'