What is the best place to get parts to rebuild a 71 distributor? I want to replace everything including cam, tach drive, and bushings. Thanks a lot.

 

Paragon has most of it.There are some new items in C3 parts for sale

 

Paragon, Dr. Rebuild, and probably most of the parts vendors but those are the two vendors I use the most for my C3

 

Thanks, I'll try those places.

 

You can get the parts most anywhere. Lar's used to sell a great tuneup kit, not sure if he still does. You want to look at the bushing side play,
cross gear bore, cross gear, main shaft, and shaft end play. I like the bushing sideplay to be about .001-..0015" not sure what you'll get with the over th counter bushings, I make my own as needed and fit them. The aftermarket croass gears and main shafts were prone to some quality problems a few years ago so check them good for mesh. The gears should not bind up by hand movement, if so find out why otherwise you'll wipe them out when installed in the car. Moroso sells the shims for the end gear and NAPA has good points and tuneup parts.
I also open up the casting oil holes for better lubrication.

Gary

 

You may want to consider having the distributor rebuilt and re curved at the same time.

Contact Don Baker in Sandwich, IL for a budget on doing the work.

Don is an exxpert on Chev distributors.

gm

 

Thanks. How can I contact him?

 

The last tele that I have for Don is 1.815.498.9522.

gm

PS Good Luck, Let me know how things go.

 

ummm, why not have Lars rebuild the distributor if you need it rebuilt? his prices are very reasonable and he knows what he is doing.

 

Is Lars taking on carb and distributor rebuild projects again? I havent heard anything from him lately.

kdf

 

he may be. about a week ago someone in one of the other sections (maybe the C1/C2 but can't remember enough to be sure now) mentioned he needed his Q-jet rebuilt and was asking for suggestions on who to send it to. Lars replied that the guy could send it to him.......... that would suggest to me that maybe Lars is open for business again??

 

I know what I'm doing, too. I just need the parts.

 

no problem - you just seemed interested in the other rebuilder that was mentioned by another poster so thought I'd just throw in another option for you.

 

Long Island Corvette supply lists everything on line......reasonable too!www.liCorvette.com
...redvetracr

 

I was going to call him to see if he has the parts. Thanks.

 

whatever you do, do NOT just indiscrimitently replace ORIGINAL parts with new repro parts if the original part is still good. Sometimes a simple clean-up will make the part perfectly reusable again.
parts like the gears and bushings by all means replace as they wear out but other parts such as the mainshaft, cam, etc you definitely want to try to keep and reuse if they are good enough condition and they are still the original parts.
the reason is that parts like the mainshaft were specific to each distributor part numner which was based on that car's motor/tranny combo installed. The year year car with the same motor installed coyld have come with two different part number distributors based for example on 4-sp or auto trans because the timing curve could be different.
GM made something like 100 different seperate mainshafts just for the SB motors alone for the various different distributors. The differences are in the geometry of the cam on top of the mainshaft for the correct timing curve. The current available repro parts usually only offer two versions for a small block motor - low HP models and SHP models. This means the curve will never be the same as it was.
A good tech with a sun distributor machine and grind the cam to make it correct and set it up correctly but otherwise for the general DIY'er it will be off.
If the mainshaft is in bad condistion and not usable than by all means get a new replacement one and it will work but whenever possible it's best to try to reuse important major parts like that if you can.

Here's my real-life example. When I first got my '65 I knew the distributor needed to be recurved. Took it to a local highly recommended local mechanic and he looked at it and said the bushings were worn and needed to be replaced. Not knowing any better at the time I had the "bright" idea to order basially ALL new parts for the distributor instead of just getting the bushings. Ordered everything from the vendor (LICS) and had the mechanic rebuild it and set it up.
after all that i felt really no improvement from the rebuild. took it to two other mechanics and they couldn't improve it and make it run right either (this was all before I learned to do the timing myself myself).
I finally found someone that is an expert on corvette distributors and has his own Sun distributor machine.
i sent the unit to him for a correct recurve set up on the sun Machine.
He looked inside and said all the repro parts are going to make it impossible and did I have the original parts from the previous rebuild. Luckily I had kept the old parts.
he cleaned up most of them and was able to reuse them and for the few parts that weren't reusable he used from his own stock or original Delco NOS parts that were correct for my distributor.
As soon as it had the correct parts, expecially the correct original mainshaft and cam back in it the recurve went easily and the thing runs to absolute perfection now.

just something to think about while you get your parts order together......

 

OK guys, I think we confused Bondo enough.
Let's be on the road again.

gm

 

No, I'm not confused at all. The main shaft is fine. I mainly need the cam assembly.