www.iFourWinns.com

Points conversion kits are cheap...

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1981 Columbia 8.7
2015 Yamaha FZR - 87mph - sold
2006 Yamaha GP1300R - sold
2003 Chaparral 215 SSI - sold
2009 Stingray 195CS - sold
2000 Four Winns H180 - sold
1976 O'day Daysailer II - sold
Rick's Four Winns H180 Mods/Upgrade Thread

I leave the points in my jeep to keep it original.

How was your boating excursion this last weekend?

I left the points in the OMC because:
1) with electronic I'd have to change the ESA module as well in order for the dog clutch drive to shift properly
2) with points if the points/condenser fails I have spares on board and can get the engine running again easily

In all the years we had points in our vehicles back in the 70s I only had one breakdown attributed to points and that was a bad condenser on my '65 VW. Fixed in about 5 min. In the old days on the original GM HEI system that came on board in '75 every now and then you'd have to replace the electronic module. I used to keep spares of those too.

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

Many years ago, 1982...I was returning to L.A. from Yosemite with my girlfriend in my 1976 Ford Courier that had points. We had crossed the San Juaquin Valley, (down the 99 to I-5), and were about to begin the ascent up the long, steep piece of highway know as The Grapevine. It was just before dark as we were approaching the last exit before the grade. Out of no where my truck lost power. I put it in neutral and coasted of the highway and into a gas station. It was running great and then just crapped out. Hmm. So, I romoved the distributor cap to find parts hanging there. What??? The rivet that held the points together had failed and the points had come apart. Hmm. That was a new one for me. So, I went behind the seat and got the spare point set and feeler gauge form my tool box and proceeded to replace the points. My girlfriend was looking at me strangely; whatever, it was getting dark and I didn't explain what I was doing...I just did it. Ten minutes later we were backon the highway. Again, she was staring at me. OK, so what's up, I asked? She told me she was amazed that I figured out the problem and fixed it so quickly. She told me that her father would have been stuck there all night. That was good.

Lesson: Buy the good Blue Streak points that are held together with four rivets!

You're right Lou, points are cheap and easy to fix in the field. They still suck! They become pitted and out of alignment which leads to poor performance.

I had a "tuned" motor in a car I owned in the late 1970s. It had a lot of new parts. It developed an intermittent misfire at high revs that was very difficult to cure. Changed the coil, leads, plugs, distributor cap and rotor ( that had springs/ a moving contact on it that operated a high RPM cutout !), stripped and rebuilt the twin Weber sidedraught carbs, new O rings on the manifold etc. Still it intermittently misfired at high rpm, but it was by them starting to do it lower down as well.. It turned out to be the "new" condenser fitted to the new distributor; the solder joint between and it's baseplate had cracked and the crack was growing ! I fitted electronic ignition soon afterwards.

Cobra has a $10 mail in rebate so I ordered the MR HH350w FLT. The St Johns has a ton of cell dead spots so it was time to invest in VHF!!

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1981 Columbia 8.7
2015 Yamaha FZR - 87mph - sold
2006 Yamaha GP1300R - sold
2003 Chaparral 215 SSI - sold
2009 Stingray 195CS - sold
2000 Four Winns H180 - sold
1976 O'day Daysailer II - sold
Rick's Four Winns H180 Mods/Upgrade Thread

For those who are interested, see the original post at the begining of this thread.

Here are two pics of our local lake; Castaic Lake here in Los Angeles County. The lifeguard told me yesterday that the lake is down 74 feet.