MORLEY’S WORKSHOP

WEBERS, V8S AND LOTS OF OTHER USEFUL STUFF

Ignition leads. You probably don’t think much about them until the engine starts to miss, right? Exactly. But for all that, they’re one of the most common replacement parts when doing a tune-up or attempting to revive an engine that has sat for any length of time. You know the drill; plugs, leads, fresh fuel, points if it has `em and oil and a filter.

But let me ask you this: Have you ever tried to change the plug leads on an injected Holden five-litre? Right about now, there will be two reactions among those reading this. Half of you will be scratching your heads saying, “What’s Morley on about this time?” and the rest of you will be rolling your eyes and starting to twitch at the memory of one of the most ridiculously impossible jobs in automotive history. Okay, dialling in the cams on the legendary quad-camshaft, desmo-drive four-cylinder Porsche engine might be a bit more of a head-scratcher, but I’m here to tell you that the simple act of swapping plug leads on an injected Iron lion is no goddam picnic either.

The problem is a combination of original design sin and the march of progress. See, even on a carburetted, old-school 308, the dizzy (from which emanate the ignition leads) is all squished up between the intake manifold and the firewall. But at least with the old 308’s port layout the intake manifold seemed more centralised, giving space to get fingers and new plug leads into place. But Holden’s march of progress then gave us, in 1989, the injected version where the lovely-looking bunch-o-bananas intake manifold extends farther back towards the firewall. So far back, in fact, that it almost completely covers the distributor cap (and leads!) The manifold doesn’t just form a roof over the dizzy, either. It’s a low roof and there’s sweet bugger all space between the bottom of the manifold and the dizzy cap.

So first-timers (and that was me yesterday) inevitably try to remove the old leads one at a time, and replace them with the new lead immediately to avoid getting the firing order out of whack. In any other car, you can rip them all out at once and just use your intimate knowledge of the firing order (it should be written on the engine somewhere) to replace them as you go. But not when you can’t see what you’re doing, you’re banging your head on the inside of the bonnet and doing everything left-handed. Which, even if you’re left-handed, is still a feat of contortionism.

The bloke next door is still chuckling as I write this, and I think he now knows some new words. Did I mention that the underside of the inlet manifold also has a sharp casting on its lower edge with pretty nearly de-gloved my left thumb in the two hours I wrestled with the bastard. Oh, and that I didn’t give the engine enough time to cool down, so I burned a fake, bunch-obananas eight-pack onto my torso the first time I leant over the engine.

Right now, though, you’re laughing, I know it. But I was turning the air blue. In the end, I rang my brother, the real mechanic, for advice. He just laughed and agreed that it was a right bastard of a job. He did offer up the fact that I could possibly undo the dizzy cap clips and try to wriggle it – vaguely – into the open where I could get at it better. But, he warned, you’ve then got to get those mongrel clips done up again. And he left it at that, suggesting that I was absolutely on my own on this one. You can be offhand like that when you live two States away.

In the end, though, after unclipping the dizzy cap, I moved it slightly out from under the manifold, just enough to do the lead swap correctly. And, somehow, I did manage to get the cap back on and the clips done up without toooooo much drama. And then I booted that V8 in the guts and prayed that it started and ran on all eight. It did, too.

I wonder if, back in the day when Holden was working on injecting the Iron lion, there was any discussion of this servicing issue. And if there was, I bet it all got knocked on the head for cost reasons. It’s a shame this got overlooked, because it’s a move to which I would have given two thumbs up. Mainly because I’d still have had two working thumbs.

What about you lot? What’s the dopiest piece of underbonnet design you’ve bumped into (probably literally)? Letters and postcards to the usual address.