Here's a few pic's of Eric VonHa's optispark that I had the opportunity to help with tonight:





After seeing how it is done I am so uninitimidated and ready to do it to the coupe in a few months :cheers:

 

:cheers:

 

One of the many joys pf the LT1 :lol: :lol:

 

Practicing in preparation for the Rubies? :yesnod: :lol: :cheers:

 

Good keep practiceing so then someday you can help with my Opti crap and waterpump... :cool: :cheers:

 

:cheers: :cool:

 

All I can say is "wow". :yesnod: It's amazing how these things can last upwards of 80k+ miles as mine did. It was in relatively good shape internally. All except for the rotor contact from the coil wire was very worn out and there was some oil absorbtion into the unit from the timing cover crank seal. Believe it or not, the end of the "rotor" and the contact points for the plug wires were in very good shape!

Funny thing with the timing cover crank seal is that it was replaced when cam/heads were installed. It leaked almost immediately after the install. :( I'm guessing it's because the crank snout (for the balancer) has a rough finish where the seal meets it thereby slinging oil as the crank rotates. It's minimal seapage.. I'm talking I only get a drop on the garage floor every time I park it. Still an annoyance though!

So anyway, the oil infiltration into the unit ultimately appeared to be the culprit in the destruction of the optispark. We took a hacksaw, yes a hacksaw, to open up the old unit. I only took off one of John's fingers while he was holding it in the vise.. He lived to tell to about it! ;) A slight amount of oil was inside the whole thing.. just enough to put a film on a couple of the pancake pieces.

Oh well, job well done! We carefully labelled all the plug wires upon disconnection, put the new opti in, regasketed and reinstalled the pump, and wa-la! It fired right up! A happy ending to a most troublesome problem! :cheers: