When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
This is a new one for me. I drove my ‘71 to work today and afterwards stopped to vote. 15 min later I hopped in and backed up a few feet and she died. Several tries making sure she’s not just flooded. No fire not even a sputter. Lift the hood, pull the air cleaner, verified good squirts. Must be electrical. Examining the dizzy, wiggling the connections, all looks good. Hit the key and she roars to life. Hmmmm. Drive the few miles home and park. After supper try it again and fires no problem. Leave it idle and start fiddling with the HEI connections. Bumped the 3-wire module connection and she stumbles and nearly dies. Pulled the connection and here’s what I find:
I haven’t touched this dizzy in the year and a half and 4K miles since I installed it. I wonder why it decided to get toasty now. I think the copper connections are fine if I can find a quality plastic connector housing to replace. Anyone point me in the right direction, perhaps an OEM GM connector?
Think I should pull the module and check the heat sink grease? Would increased module heat cause more resistance at the connections?
That housing is part of the terminal block with capacitor same used from 1975-1991 according to Zip...
1. To me the center terminal is or has sunk and may not have been making the positive contact is should be making. The center terminal I believe is the ground, and if the burnt terminal next to it is a pink wire it is the B+ or primary coil side.
2. Never hurts to clean off old heat sink grease and re-apply.
3. The housing in your photo I believe is GM #8911755 and about $1.36ea from Mouser Electronics out of Mansfield, Texas.
Mouser Link to housing: https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail...PpITwk2g%3D%3D
Here is the Data Sheet Link for housing 8911755, see if it matches you housing: https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/1...55-1161489.pdf
I can't say what shipping costs are to your location, never hurts to have a couple spares...
Wiring connectors heat up and melt the socket housing because of a poor connection. A high resistance connection will cause excessive heat. Corrosion on either side of that connection will cause a poor, high resistance connection. Which in turn causes heat.
Your assumption that the connectors are good and only the plastic housing is the problem is deeply flawed.
Your issue lies with loose or corroded connectors.
when its hot out the hei modules randomly die... I am on my 4th module in less than 2500miles (this time using new old stock delco part) mine died on saturday I went to start my car in the garage and nothing... usually it dies after driving and when attempting to restart so maybe it died on friday when I got home.
Whether this is your issue I dont know because that connector damage looks like it could be unrelated but I suppose it depends on current draw and condition of the connection. There are multiple threads on multiple different wiring plug and fuse connections that look like this right now. From the looks of your pictured id say the spade connector in the center area of your connector came out of the correct position and pushed back barely making contact with the flat blade male end it was supposed to slide over and that causing your high resistance/heat issue.
heres one source for a replacement https://www.ebay.com/itm/32470025945...MAAOSwvRBg32PV
Last edited by augiedoggy; Aug 10, 2022 at 08:03 AM.
I will add, those are NOT copper terminals they are Brass.
What I have found over the years is that the F/M Non Tin plated bare Brass terminals are a VERY tight fit to the Male terminal.
A Tin plated F/M terminal for whatever reason fits the Male terminal much better without the chance of the terminal pushing back into the housing.
That's what looks like what happened to your center terminal.
I actually stopped using bare Brass terminals a long time ago just for this reason.
Where do you put heat sink grease on an HEI distributor?
Just to clarify, the better modules will come with a small packet of Heat Sink Compound.
It's also sold in small squeeze tubes. Decades ago, Radio Shack sold it. Don't remember where I found it, maybe EBay?
Do not confuse the special compound with Dielectric Grease. Two totally separate products and functions.
Thanks for all the replies so far.
Full disclosure, this is on what I believe to be a China-sourced HEI (it was very low cost) that, for 4k miles prior to this, was flawless in operation. Usually poor quality dizzy horror stories show themselves a lot sooner than this.
So I think this might be a case where the rest of the dizzy is decent, but this plug was inferior in either terminal retention or heat resistance, or both.
I am slightly wary of ebay & hot rod shop pigtail replacements that they might be of similar outlook in quality and materials selection, which is why I was seeking an OEM replacement housing.
I'll look closer at the brass terminals, I doubt they are corroded, and I hope to be able to clean them up and bring them into spec as far as how tight they need to slide onto the male terminals, and clip into the housing. Then slip them into a quality new housing that holds them securely and be on my way.
The module, as of right now, is still good, as it runs fine when the proper connection is made. But in classic C3 fashion, "while I'm in there", I'll pull it and apply some new heat transfer compound. I've used some hi performance compounds in my work life so I'll probably check into those.
That housing is part of the terminal block with capacitor same used from 1975-1991 according to Zip...
1. To me the center terminal is or has sunk and may not have been making the positive contact is should be making. The center terminal I believe is the ground, and if the burnt terminal next to it is a pink wire it is the B+ or primary coil side.
2. Never hurts to clean off old heat sink grease and re-apply.
3. The housing in your photo I believe is GM #8911755 and about $1.36ea from Mouser Electronics out of Mansfield, Texas.
Mouser Link to housing: https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail...PpITwk2g%3D%3D
Here is the Data Sheet Link for housing 8911755, see if it matches you housing: https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/1...55-1161489.pdf
I can't say what shipping costs are to your location, never hurts to have a couple spares...
Good call, this is a Delphi part and appears to be made from PA66, which should be strong and heat resistant. I've no idea what my existing housing is made from.
Good call, this is a Delphi part and appears to be made from PA66, which should be strong and heat resistant. I've no idea what my existing housing is made from.
If you get stuck somewhere, and the melted connector won't allow for a good connection, you can use a small screwdriver to release the tang and remove the terminals and just push the terminals onto the male tabs under the dizzy cap. It's not pretty, but it will get you running.
I can't tell you how many I've seen with just the blue crimp on female "quick connects" on the wires and just shoved in from under the cap. Bubba doesn't need that fancy connector frame. Those wires are power, ground to and signal (trigger ground for the coil) from the module in the dizzy. The main ignition power wire is the single wire that comes in there at the cap.
If you get stuck somewhere, and the melted connector won't allow for a good connection, you can use a small screwdriver to release the tang and remove the terminals and just push the terminals onto the male tabs under the dizzy cap. It's not pretty, but it will get you running.
I can't tell you how many I've seen with just the blue crimp on female "quick connects" on the wires and just shoved in from under the cap. Bubba doesn't need that fancy connector frame. Those wires are power, ground to and signal (trigger ground for the coil) from the module in the dizzy. The main ignition power wire is the single wire that comes in there at the cap.
from the looks of the picture that tang already released it the center and the center connecter was actually not pushed onto the pin when it was plugged in. That caused a poor contact connection which heated up and melted things.. if that connector hadnt shifted out of position when it was initially plugged in there wouldnt have been an issue.
I have both a chinese generic HEI tach drive distributor and a new accel brand distributor and a side by side comparison tells me they likely are both from the same chinese manufacturer... That said my generic works fine, I bought the accel because I had an issue which turned out to not be related to my distributor at all.
Follow up: all fixed.
Removed the terminals from the melted connector and cleaned them up real nice and bent the locking tabs out properly.
terminals in the distributor cap were nasty too, but cleaned up real easy.
New housing arrived this afternoon from Mouser.
clearly a better quality piece.
The terminals snapped into the housing solidly.
Popped off the ignition module, and the heat sink compound was looking pretty good, so I just put a fresh layer on and reassembled everything.
The new housing plugged into the cap nice and tight and I made sure the terminals stayed where they are supposed to.
Running great now, but in true C3 fashion, fix one thing, find another. Here’s a pinhole in my heater hose. Oh well.
HEI wire connector
