I've had loads of trouble with the timing on my Acadiane over the last year, and im starting to get really fed up with it all so i want to get to the bottom of it.

At last years national with the help of a few folks to double-check what i was doing i stripped the advance mechanism out, replaced the cam, weights, points and condenser and re-set everything so that it was spot-on. Timing was checked with a strobe on full advance and was great, with about a half-tooth flutter which was put down to a slightly off cam nose and the dwell angle set to 107 degrees with a multimeter. Uncle ken had a poke around and a test drive afterwards and declared that all seemed well.

It ran sweet as a nut for a while then over the last couple of months started running like shite again. Tested it again today and the dwell angle is now 94 degrees and the tippex scale for the strobe vanishes completely away out of sight on full advance.

I've not changed or adjusted anything since Anglesey when it was running great so how could everything be so off? Its really starting to piss me off

Martin,
that lower dwell angle suggests that the condenser is failing; not only will that cause poor running, but excessive sparking at the points has been eroding them.
I'd suggest that you mount the replacement condenser away from the points box, possibly near the coil, with a good earth lead back to the engine.
Also best to do this fairly soon, since a wider gap is advancing the timing and if it hasn't already done so, it will cause pinking...

Thanks for the reply ken - I'll change the points and condenser (again!) when I can get an order in to Roy. For now I'll just retard the timing a bit as I still need to use the car daily.

Is this what we have been reduced to in terms of parts? These were the expensive Valeo ones and I've managed about three thousand miles at most before needing to replace them...

Roy, if you're reading this can you please give your suppliers hell for the cheap shit they're pumping out? Its not like faulty condensers have just suddenly started appearing and they can blame it on a bad batch - it has been happening for years now!

we did have a car once were the part of the iginition sitting on the camshaft was loose and moved sometimes a bit....took us a while to find that error. And yes the new condensators are rubbish... in my other '57 there is still the same condesator that was in as i bought it 20 years ago. They are also double the size of the new ones. I was thinking couldn't you use a condensator from a radio shop but you need to now the value and make some form of connection.

You may not need to change the points, often they can be cleaned up with a contact file.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tools-Draper- ... 35bf460125

Also, as AZL has already advised, just about any ignition condenser can be used if it's mounted away from the points box.
How about one of these?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Citroen-Renau ... 3a9ef02138

A flying lead from the wire leading down to the points box could even be added, with a female bullet connector for quick changeovers.

Thanks for the ideas, chaps - i always thought it was best practice to change both at the same time, but i have a spark plug file kicking about somewhere so maybe i will put that to good use!

Any opinions on the Velleman transistor-assisted ignition kits available? I have one kicking about that sean gave me ages ago but have never got round to fitting it.

Just do it...
Our Dyanes all have Boyer Bransden points-assisted units fitted; one set of points lasted over 100,000 miles with the Boyer in circuit.

Also, check the charging voltage using a good multimeter, don't rely on the original item to be accurate.
Over-voltage does tend to reduce the life of condensers.