Distributor baseplate issue.

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Yesterday Chris picked up Amy's Jup after I had spent a couple of days trying to figure out why it would not start. I was somewhat confused as the car had started and run well after giving the engine a wash, and did start after I had undone and replaced the throttle pedal assembly to take out the carpet. But it would not start or, if it did, continue to run when trying to get it out of the garage. The problem was resolved after changing rotor arm, points and capacitor and finally the baseplate of the distributor. I had noticed that the point's fibre cam follower was not contacting the cam well which prompted me to swap the baseplate assembly with the points and capacitor attached. I suspect that the vacuum advance mechanism was sticking giving 10 deg of advance at starting and idling as this fitted with the symptoms of difficult starting, lumpy running and some backfires yet picked up well then died if it did start.