Points Dist. in an Electronic System

[oldcarnut]

Have a problem and was going through the many posts about headlight relays and alt. upgrades.  My problem(s) are that my 70RR does the light dimming thing like most (read about the cure and bulkhead cleanings) but after driving a short while with the lights on it will pretty much kill my engine at idle in gear unless I put it in neutral at stop and maybe a slight gas pedal press to keep it running.  Turn the lights off and it all runs fine again.  Flip them back on and the engine wants to act like it's missing or cutting out until I get driving.  I admit I have not been through the wiring yet since I've had it because of just trying to get the mechanicals straight first.  Battery is new and I did have the alt. tested and was told it was ok. The reg. looks like it was replaced sometime not too long ago, and it will run with the battery disconnected.  Then i thought about that I have a points distributor while everything else is electronic.  I don't know why someone did that but it doesn't surprise me with some of the other stuff I have found on it.  Here's my question.  Will the draw on power by the lights at idle also cause a loss of fire at the plugs and would it do it on either type of dist.?  Does having a points setup in an electronic system have it's own set of problems? Was going to change it back later but hadn't started driving it at night until this past week. Having to use the wipers made it worse.

[b5blue]

For 1970 the car had electrically controlled alt and a points type dist. from the factory. The FSM said for "lights dim"= "high resistance in light circuit" so clean all contacts starting at the alt to reg first since the wipers are effected too. These alts don't charge at idle worth a dam, everything has to be perfect so go over all connections and clean them up-battery-bulkhead-grounds-switches, everything remember it's old now and just needs cleaning first! I chop nail files into strips wide enough to fit inside female connectors and blast with electrical cleaner. (I then coat it with "DeoxIT D100L by CAIG Laboratory Inc. but you don't need to) The male tabs are easy to rub clean with fine sand paper. It's a pain in the butt but so is buying parts and changing them only to find it didn't fix something! That's my  Good luck! 

[oldcarnut]

Yep, a good cleaning and inspection is on for my weekend including under the dash .  I got a little confused with some statements about 70-up going with electronic ignitions and others converting over to electronic so I thought mine should have had an electronic dist. I'll be contemplating the upgraded alt mods in the future as I add the a/c or change anything else as the project gets to that point.   Thanks

[b5blue]

I guess I should say "solid state voltage regulator" If you change out the dist. do not use a re-manufactured one like I tried to....they are crap! (I ended up after 2 bad ones going with a new MoPar) Good luck it may just be poor connections! Keep us posted.....