My gorgeous “new” ‘87 wouldn’t start this morning, it rained all day yesterday and was humid this morning from all the rain. Always started so easy when it wasn’t raining, what should I look for and how can I “rainproof” her?

The pic was taken three days ago befor it rained, ran and drove beautifully. By the way I live in Georgia, shipped the car from Southern California where I used to live lol

 

Here's something really easy.

Remove the coil wire...the one that goes from the coil to the center of the distributor cap. Are the ends corroded? And/or the sockets they fit into? If so, clean and try starting the engine.

Over the years I've seen this problem crop up a few times in "won't start after rainy weather". Worth a shot. Fingers crossed.

But, truth is, it's probably something else .

If the starter spins but it won't start, here's a checklist:

ENGINE CRANKS BUT WON'T START

If the starter doesn't spin:

Engine Will Not Crank Checklist

Something I think the checklist doesn't mention:

Put the gearshift in "D" and turn the key to start. Listen carefully. Do you hear the fuel pump hum?

Cheers
DD

 

Starter spins, she cranks nice and strong, just no vroom. Will look at her this afternoon.

 

After pulling the wire from the coil to distributor, cleaned and dried them out, then left the hood up to let sun beat down on engine, slight breeze was going, dried her up enough to allow her to start up. The coil and spark plug wires are brand new, not sure about distributor cap, and distributor looks pretty old, I’ve seen an upgrade being offered by a English company, an updated distributor with no points, do our series 3 cars have points? I didn’t think cars even in the late 80’s had them. Anyways this tells me it’s an easy fix, I’d like to “rain proof” it to prevent being stranded in the rain (or right afterwards) later

 

check your cold start injector.

 

Would wet weather affect that? I remember my water cooled vdubs back in the day used to have that fail and it was dry Southern California weather lol

 

I don't think rain affects it, could just be a coincidence.

 

Look for tracking markings on the inside of the distributor cap. Sometimes dampness makes it easy for the spark to go where it's not wanted. BTW there are no points in the Series 3 ignition system, it is Lucas Constant Energy system. However it still uses the traditional weights to advance the ignition, and a pipe to the inlet manifold for vacuum advance. Full EFI systems were under development in the early 80s but only the XJ40 model had it.