Recently ive had a very strange starting issue with my old girl. It started a few days back pulling up to fill up with petrol , came to restart and it turned over but wouldnt fire up , tried once or twice and it was the same. Pushed her out the way and checked the dizzy cap the points were a touch " chalky " so i scratched them clean with a screwdriver and also touched the rotar arm while i was there , put it back on started first time !

This weekend ive bought a new dizzy cap and rotar arm and had them fitted beliving the olds items to have been tired (addmitedly they didnt look good !) alls been fine all weekend , drove to the missis and run about , went to work in her today , come to start up going home from work and its done the same thing again, tried bump starting it and it wouldnt have it , it was turning over just not sparking up.

Popped the bonnet took a look inside the dizzy all was ok as you would expect , replaced the dizzy tried again and it started sweet as a nut ! lol

Ive had my spark plugs out tonight and they look ok if not a touch worn but when its running its running nice and smoothly (engine has only 75k) so cant be a problem there , cleaned them and checked the gaps just to be sure tho and all was ok.

Put plugs back in , fired up brilliant ! had to adjust the gaps a touch so i thought that could have been it ... switched off gave it a minute or two tried again , and the same problem ! couldnt belive it , gave it a minute or so again and tried and it started brilliant again ! , waited again ... no go .... gave it 30 seconds this time and it started ok !

Could anyone pleaseeee explain this to me as iam out of ideas and obviously dont want to go to far in the car as it is at the momment.

For note , plugs and leads are back on in correct order and it isnt the old " temporaily flooded " thing you some times also get from the XR3i , when you miss slip the ignition and have to wait a minute or so before restarting ... as ive had this also in the past , when this happens you dont even get it turning over , just all your red dash lights up and not a sound , until its been stood a min or two then it restarts ok. This is a diffrent problem ( been owning Mk4 XR3is for 12 years ) but this problem escapes me, any help is really appreciated ! Thanks in advance