Dammakins

Hi Fellas,

My distributor is in need of a restoration. Last night I got the motor TDC and pulled it out. After taking a look, I noticed the rings above the gear are very chipped/worn. Curious to know if anyone's had experience buying a housing replacement through Paragon, ZIP, Ecklers, etc. OR if this is going to require machining. Also curious to know why these rings would get chipped and worn so badly. The distributor is original to the car so it is 49 years old and the vehicle has close to 100,000 miles on it...Pictures below

Thanks for your help!


Alex

Sigforty

Looks like a casting flaw, not really wear.

lars

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that distributor. That's how they were cast and built. Has no effect at all on operation or performance.

Lars

Big2Bird

Looks pretty good for turning the clock.

Take note of the gear dimple to rotor relationship, pop the roll pin and the tach gear, and check the shaft and lower bushing.

Dammakins

Thanks guys! Glad to hear those rings are as they should be!

I bought the car a little over a year ago - This distributor is from the #'s matching L36 motor. The previous owner bored the motor .030 over, put a healthy cam in it and got the compression up to 10.75:1. The carb mechanic I went to believes the cam is in the realm of 240 degrees at .050. When he timed the motor after putting the rebuilt original Q-Jet on it, he told me full advance was 46 degrees @ 3,300 RPM. I'm told this is way too far forward as it should be in the realm of 36-38 full advance. I'm assuming this means the distributor will need to get blueprinted against an L71 vs L36.

Big2Bird

Testing and curving a distributor for performance and operation is always wise. There are things on a machine that show up that would be hard to detect on a car.

derekderek

Look at used distributors on ebay. You will see the same casting flaws...