When repairs go wrong! How I got to the REAL solution!

Go to our sponsor betterhelp.com/carwizard for 10% off your first month of therapy with BetterHelp and get matched with a therapist who will listen and help.

Notice wizard didn’t crap all over the past mechanics. He’s humble and has class.

Dealerships don't generally have "real" mechanics anymore. They have technicians that read codes and then just throw parts at it...

I was late getting home one night and my dad was mad. Curfew is curfew. But when I told that I had to file the points down, while parked on the riverbank with my friends using lighters so I could see, all was forgiven. And the next weekend we put electronic ignition on the 72 El Camino.

Wizard. You are being too nice to the dealership. It really baffles me that a dealership troubleshooting their own vehicles can not work out the problem. No wonder more and more people are giving up with dealerships.

I am shocked a dealership service department actually TOUCHED an eleven year old Beetle.

If there was a mechanic like wizard near me, I would not go anywhere else.

Dealer sent their car to CarWizard???!!!! man Wizard must be hell of a mechanic

If the '71 Chevy doesn't have a ballast resistor on the wire feeding the old coil, it probably has resistor wire feeding it which drops the operating voltage to about 9 volts so the points will last longer. However, it will have 12 volts on the old coil whenever the starter is engaged, fed from another wire. The HEI distributor is probably designed to operate on 12 volts. You probably already know this, but I thought I would post this in case someone else was converting theirs.

Wizard is really an awesome mechanic. I appreciate his advertisement for a therapist. Probably due to chemical exposure during my career, I ended up bipolar. 3 of my former coworkers have self terminated. Very sad really. God bless you Wizard!

@ 2:10 The Car Wizard is my therapist ... a calming voice in a world of disasters .... 🙃

For those doing the points distributor to HEI swap (even mechanics) need to remember that GM puts a resistance wire ahead of the coil to drop the running voltage. Chrysler and Ford use a ceramic ballast resistor that is easy to see. The coil gets full battery volts only when cranking (battery voltage drops quite a bit while cranking>>it's not 12 volts if you measure it). You need to go back to the fuse block and remove the wire that feeds the coil and replace with a standard non-resistance wire. HEI needs full battery voltage when running. GM fist put HEI in their vehicles starting in 1974. My old neighbor's new 1974 Pontiac Catalina 400 was one of the early ones. Some '74's still had points.

That C10 is in really good shape. That HEI distributor should take care of it`s issues. I prefer the old pushrod engines, much easier to diagnose issues than new cars that are rolling computers.

Such talent! You were always cleaning up someone's mess & you're always so patient.👍

Reminds me of my distributor story. I had bought a 1965 Corvair convertible and was driving it back home after driving it home. After driving it for a distance it would just stop running. I called a mechanic and he told me that the fuel filter in the tank was clogged and to use compressed air and blow back through the fuel line to clear it out. The next time it quit I checked to see if it was getting fuel right away and it was. I ended up towing it home. I figured that since it was getting fuel it had to be something electrical with the distributor. I decided to install a pertronix electronic ignition on it and it ran fine ever since.

8:32 in Brazil, chevrolet kadett E uses this HEI module onthe distributor too; the magnets loose their properties due to the heat and the engine comes out of timing randomly until finally fail...

What were they thinking?! They replaced everything on the top end of that engine except that adjuster. Did they not have one in stock? There should be some recourse for the customer to recover all money wasted by the dealership on an incorrect diagnosis. An ethical shop/mechanic would not charge for un-needed repairs due to a mistaken diagnosis... LOL I know, good luck with that. It should be like malpractice claims against doctors.

I'm the senior technician at the company I work for, and essentially every job I do is the ones that no one else can figure out, or has messed it up so bad, I have to go in and recover the account. I feel your pain, but also appreciate the fact that it keeps the job interesting.

Quite common and simple issue to check. Magnet needs to move freely in adjuster. Can't believe a dealership couldn't figure that out when we see those at my dealership pretty often. I'm suspecting late oil changes causes it when you already get 10k oil changes at the dealership for VW.

As a Truck/Heavy equipment mechanic here in the mining industry ,of West Australia Its nice to think that their are people like the Wizard who have such passion to work on the most complicated nonsense the Auto industry can come up with,,and do it with a smile Great Job.