Ups and downs

Yesterday (I'm writing this at twenty to one in the morning!) was an emotional roller coaster. Becky II went back to the garage for the welding and retest so I was without transport for the day. 5 o'clock came round and I hadn't heard anything so I made my way down and when I got there the welding had just been finished and the car was having the retest. Fortunately, she passed so I have that all-important piece of paper. All seemed well and on they way to get Anita from the local Sainsbury's where she works Becky II died on me and wouldn't start again. I ended up calling the breakdown service (included with my insurance) who couldn't get the car going again so they recovered the car back home. After some head scratching and component swapping (from Becky) I decided to consult my workshop manuals. To my surprise, it was the Haynes manual that provided the answer. I was getting a spark fron the coil but there was no spark at the plugs. According to Haynes, this is either a faulty distributor cap or rotor arm. Both these had been replaced recently with new parts. I knew better than to assume that the new parts were fine so after more part swapping the fault was traced to the rotor arm. I'd already swapped the HT leads earlier on and because they were in better condition I kept them. A short road test proved that all was well. In fact, Becky II seems to be running a bit better with Becky's HT leads. I'll be returning the rotor arm to get it exchanged. Lucky I kept the box it came in!