Digging into my 1985 GS with the 12a and had some issues last weekend. I fired the car up, and started just fine. Took it out for a spin and had a slight hesitation around 4k rpm. This is nothing unusual as the car tends to not get driven a ton, and after it gets things moving, it never happens more than once (about the time the secondaries would kick in). Then I noticed some hesitation around 2k as well. Continued with a short drive and kept having issues at 2k and 4k, like it was bogging down, bucking, but not the signs of true misfiring. Then the car started to idle rough, and low. Took it home immediately, and it was definitely not running right. In addition, when I popped the hood, I had a faint/light smell of electrical burning. Started digging into some of the common things:

• compression good
• plugs normal wear (will replace anyways)
• distributor cap and arm good
• carb clean
• oil good
• coolant good
• fuel filter is new and still clean
• no blown fuses
• no smoke or unusual smells from the exhaust

Any direction on things to check? The electrical smell has me thinking it is a relay, or ignition related. The smell was towards the driver's side of the engine. I could not tell if it was closer to the fender or the spark plugs, but I could not smell anything by the carb, or on the passenger side. I have not started it since for fear of doing damage to it. Car is original and only 56k miles. Given that, it has been maintained, but its also almost 40 years old so things can break. Just sort of perplexed where to look.

 

Are the battery cables original? They tend to corrode from the inside out.

 

Yes they are. I will check those as well and see what I can find. Definitely was unaware of that issue.