father in law has a 38 buick converted over to 12 volt.was putting radio in the car left key forward overnite and burned up coil.hes wondering what other people use for a distributor or is there after market electronic for this thing.its the straight eight in the car. ________ William Clay Ford, Sr.
The distributor should be the same as the stock one, just converted up to 12 volt. He probably fried the points, and that should be easy to change. Pertronix makes an electronic ignition conversion for that distributor, check out their web-site for details. I don't know of any conversion to a more modern distributor, the straight 8 used it's own unique design, and I don't think it was used by anyone else. Most parts store will probably still carry the points for that distributor, they were the same in most GM products up until the mid-fifties, and I think some Chevy 6 bangers used them up until the early 70s.
