We hate to see you go, but we all need to move on at some point.
Good luck and at least let us know what you end up buying to replace your C3.

 

One step forward, two steps back.

I put the dash back together this morning. Dash fuse blew again though. I thought whatever at this point and drove it out somewhere quiet to clean out the carbon. I make it most of the way there and the upper radiator hose lets go, spraying the windshield and driver fender.



I reattach it, and take a different car to get coolant and another gauge fuse. While at the store I realized I didn’t have the tachometer plugged in when I thought I found the short. Sure enough when I got back, unplugged the tach, and gave it a new fuse the rest of the gauges work perfectly. Maybe it was that socket grounding out too, but I can say with certainty that my problem now is the tachometer, probably the circuit board considering I don’t have a tach filter.

After trying the method in this thread (the very last post) it still doesn’t seem any better. I’ll pull the plugs again and give them a look.

The radiator cap was not the thing that popped, so I don’t think it overheated earlier, but it’s still running hotter than usual. 200-210 rather than its normal 180. It’s also still very slow in acceleration, and getting horrible fuel economy. Lastly, it seems with it running so badly the PCV valve isn’t getting a good signal, and allowing oil to get into the distributor housing and out other seals with excessive crankcase pressure.

 

I checked the timing, it had advanced itself a bit. Idling at 34 degrees at idle. Set that back to 28, checked without the VA, 16. It drives better once it’s started obviously. But still not able to idle.

 

It's always something, huh?!

What is all the liquid in the distributor - antifreeze?

 

Oil, the only way it can get in there is from the inside through the seal with too much crankcase pressure. Same thing that’s happening in this thread.

I pulled the plugs on the passenger side, the drivers side was still too hot. It seems after my cleaning they look much better, nearly brand new again.

I’m looking into an adjustable valve, and new coil/module/pickup to try in conjunction. Looking into this, because it probably makes more sense at this point.

 

Some band clamps are more narrow than others.
Old circle track tech is to double clamp the radiator hoses (two clamps, side-by-side; not just one).
Somehow, I kinda doubt cousins Claude or Grok are alive to that fact.
Distributors & ignition parts, like most things; ya usually get what ya pay for.

 

I'd send you a distributor to test, if I had any left.

If you are going to buy a new one, consider a Progression Ignition Distributor. Getting the tune just right is something the next owner will appreciate (and hopefully pay you more for).

https://progressionignition.com/

 

That link thread seems to be a different oil leak problem — his issue was oil between the distributor to intake surface mounting. How are you getting oil inside the distributor cap? For crankcase pressure to do that it would have to come up the shaft and get flung around. That seems like an insane amount of blow-by pressure such that it'd be pushing the PCV out of the grommet and have major oil leaking at every gasket, especially the valve covers.

Do you have a functioning PCV system?

 

This sounds exactly like what I’m experiencing. Up into the housing then down onto the intake and back of the block. I wasn’t having these issues before though, I believe it’s related. PCV is in the drivers side valve cover with a breather in the other.

I checked the circuits in my new coil, they looked good.



Primary circuit, .6 to 1.5 is considered good



Secondary circuit, 6k to 10k is considered good



Old coil primary, no bueno



Secondary circuit looks alright, but that doesn’t really matter at this point.

I’ll clean out the housing, and try a NAPA/Echlin module to see if it makes a difference.