I talked with Bob Telep today.





He's the gentleman, seen above, who reconditioned my Sun distributor machine several years ago. He has moved to Venice, Florida but still does work on Sun equipment. He generously offered to help anyone who needs any technical assistance with their distributor machines (Tom, contact him about your condenser testing meter/switch. I'm confident he can get it squared away.) He has lots of parts and welcomes anyone contacting him to see if he has what they might need. He knows these machines like no one else.

Bob also mentioned another Sun parts source, Mark Saunders of Paramount Distributor Company, paramountd.com
616-878-9734.

Here's Bob's contact information by his permission:

Bob Telep
734-788-8607
rtelep@ameritech.net

Phone calls to Bob are OK he says. So there you have it. Maybe we'll get a few more of these machines up and running.

Thomas

 

I knew couple speed shops in SoCal that had Sun dizzy machines, they would spec in your distributor, and shim it to help reduce spark scatter, for a fee. Set up the adv curve and check the vac can. I think i paid $35 or so, back about 1986 to have a dizzy set up. Replacing bushings was extra, if it needed it.

Doug

 

As far as the profit center thing goes, depending on how scrupulous, or unscrupulous one was, you could easily pull the dizzy and show the customer spark scatter and wandering advance and talk him into a dizzy rebuild.

Unless there was a bunch of stuff in the way, in reality is was much easier and faster to pull the dizzy and set up the new points on the Sun machine, a good practiced mechanic could always pop the dizzy back in and have it seat correctly the first time without screwing around with it like an amateur will. I never changed points with the dizzies still in my cars, while i was in auto mechanics class in HS, I used the machine

Doug

 

I replaced thousands point sets back when and the only ones I had to remove for the point change was the Chrysler slant 6 and the Mallory 4 cam dual point units.

Joe

 

With the later GM integrated point/condenser set, you could change the unit in two minutes. Checking dwell took another 90 seconds. Time is money.

 

How did the integrated points/condenser sets work out for you? Not too well for myself and many others.

50-60 years ago, it wasn't a good idea to leave a distributor in an engine for the life of the engine without pulling it out and servicing it. That is, unless you were willing to have customer "come backs" for nagging, mysterious tuning problems. Distributors didn't wear any better than engines back then.

 

I find mine handy for other uses too. I've calibrated speedos, calibrated electronic tachs, tested a cruise control-------even trouble shot a motorcycle stator with it.

 

Never had a problem. Owned a '72 Monte Carlo that had over 200,000 miles on it and never had a problem with the dizzy or using integrated points (Belden and not some cheap knock off). Perhaps I was just lucky.

 

When I need to replace the dual points in my 60 Vette I pull the distributor and check it over for the advance or bad bushings, I don't have a vacuum advance and I cannot set the dwell with the engine running, in the machine I can set it with the distributor in operation and also check the advance and see if there are any changes since my last tune up. It also gives me a chance to clean it up and properly lube it.

I drive the Vette nearly every day, I find it easier to just pull the distributor, replace the points and check it out and reinstall it and set the timing and be done with it.

I also have the Sun tester with the scope which I use every now and then to check the condition of the of the rest of the ignition system, A great way to find a high tension spark plug lead on it's way out or a bad plug.

Bill

 

That is exactly why the distributor machines were popular in their day. Adjusting dwell while the engine was running wasn't an option until about '58 on GM cars. I think Delco was first with this. If so, other brands (cars) came later in the decade.

Remember when distributors looked like this?

 

Mike, I do, set the new points with a feeler gauge and one turn on the grease cap or repack it if it was empty and your were good to go.

Bill

 

I don't have Mike's seniority, but I have some. Working on the old Sun oscilloscopes in the late '70's through the '90's, it was easy to see a worn distributor on the 'superimposed' setting. The ONLY points failures I had back in that era were the Uniset points for GM cars....it got so that I stopped installing them after the third car came in on a hook. The separate condenser and points sets---never an issue. And the time difference to change them out? Negligible. Especially since some older guy had already thrown out the RFI shields ten years before I got in there! I have experienced many, many distributors coking up on their shafts, which causes the mechanical advance function to either not work at all, or be stuck to full advanced at all times. 'Back in the day', I R&R'd distributors as a matter of course when doing an initial complete engine tune up on customer's cars. After that, when they came back in 2 years or 15k miles later, I would simply do the plugs and points/condenser, as the distributor was 'good to go' for many more miles. Many of the cars I removed the distributors from had not ever had them removed.....and some of these cars were 10-30 years old. Reading my collection of Popular Science magazines, dating from 1938-1962 as a teenager and soaking up Gus Wilson's Model Garage had an excellent affect on my attitude as an auto tech later on!
I got to where I could install a set of Ford points on the FLAT part of the cam, by feel, no gauge. Just slightly kiss the rubbing block against the flat, and back off to almost not touching. I was at 28 degrees every time. I can still do it today from muscle-memory!!