Dwell......
Thread Starter
Drifting
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 1,540
Likes: 51
From: Lexington Park Maryland
Ok. I'm going to wrap-up this topic now. Borrowed a friends "old proven" dwell meter. Mine said 40......, his said 40 and a half. I set the dwell back to 30, re-did timing and the car runs great. The little stumble when starting off that I learned to live with (that I thought was a carb issue) is now gone. Once again a perceived FUEL issue turns out to be a FIRE issue !!! You'd think I would have learned by now. Have a nice and safe Memorial Day everyone..........
Drifting
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 1,671
Likes: 10
From: california
The nice things about the Fords, though, especially the SB 289, was the fact that you could use the solenoid mounted on the firewall as a bridge to crank the engine over while you were doing the point setting. Ford had the right idea on the distributor--mounted up front and independent of the intake manifold. That was a good idea.
their downfall was selling the pantera, with a rear mounted engine and a front mounted distributer with dual points you had to open the deck lid, crawl in and lay over the engine (with about 12" of clearance between the carb and the roof) and remove ALL those screws to replace the dual points and the condensor without dropping one. then you had to set the point gaps with a screwdriver while you were laid out over the engine with your nose about 1" away from the distributer (if you got the points gap wrong-it's start over time) THEN once you get the points set/the dwell reading right. then you would have to pull the firewall/bulkhead between the back of the cockpit and the engine compartment to set the timing. it is the biggest pain to work on, but the funnest car to drive (it's a go kart on steroids)..
