Could this be the coil packing in?

[Brendan-s]

I have been having intermittent dramas with the Zook losing power and power cutting in and out.

When the car is not under load it revs fine. Load it up and it splutters and coughs something shocking. Was playing around with it before and couldn't get any power out of the coil lead (tried arcing it to head bolt but nothing). I sprayed everything electrical I could find with WD40 and it spluttered back to life. Also, when it was idling, if you squeeze the coil lead at the coil end it would splutter and die.

Any ideas? Gonna pinch a mate's coil on Monday and swap it over to see if that's the problem, but I have NFI of the symptoms of a dying coil so it may or may not be it..

[zookimal]

Sounds electrical. Check the condition of the spark plugs, leads and the advance actuator on the dizzy. It has a vacuum line running back to the carby. Check it's not blocked or fallen off. Could be coil as you've said too. Check battery cables are tight at both ends of +ve and -ve leads too.

[Brendan-s]

All plugs and leads were replaced a month/1000km ago, but I'll check em out tomorrow and see what state they're in. Will check the advance actuator and battery too. Will report back, cheers for the info

Edit: Oh and new dizzy cap on Friday to eliminate that

[Brendan-s]

Okay, so battery cables were tight, actuator line was in good nick, plugs are still fine. Sprayed everything with WD40 again. Had a look at the two wires that go to the side posts on the coil, and on one the connectors were in shit condition, clogged up with grease. Cleaned it up and it started and ran. Could that have been enough to stop it running properly?

I'll check the resistance of the coil when I get to work tomorrow (don't have a volt meter here)

Thanks again for the help

edit: also, that weird symptom of killing the car by squeezing the coil lead seems to have gone away. I made 100% sure all leads were on properly (they were) but couldn't replicate it.

Would like to get to the bottom of this as the next two weekends coming I have two road trips with the missus to music festivals and the last thing I need is a dead Zook on the side of the highway!

[zookimal]

Okay, so battery cables were tight, actuator line was in good nick, plugs are still fine. Sprayed everything with WD40 again. Had a look at the two wires that go to the side posts on the coil, and on one the connectors were in shit condition, clogged up with grease. Cleaned it up and it started and ran. Could that have been enough to stop it running properly?

Yeah, could be enough to stop it running properly. Or at least limit the output so that it stutters under load. Clean it up and test it it and see how you go.

Sometimes a blocked carby jet might give a similar symptom too.

[ZookNC]

Have you done anything to the fuel line recently ? Sounds like a blocked fuel line to me, exact same symptoms as a mate's Zook had and his fuel line was twisted after having put the tank back in after putting in a new sender unit.

Cheers,

[Brendan-s]

Just put a (stock) carby on to replace mine that had some broken linkages. The carby had a kit put through it about 12 months back.

First thing I checked was fuel, it is pumping fine up to the carby, though I'm not discounting anything buggered in the carby.

Drove it to work and back yesterday (gradually loading it up a bit more as I went) and it never missed a beat. Guess I'll see how she goes...

Cheers