Distributor Disassembly and Cleaning

Here are the results after a 24 hour soak in the paint thinner and some more scrubbing with the brass wire brush. I think this is about as clean as it's going to get. I could spend some time cleaning the tan crud out of the top but I don't see how this would affect the function of the distributor. All of the important parts are clean.











Will this grease be suitable for packing the grease bowl?



I ordered the vacuum advance and shims today and they should be here by Friday.

Thanks!

 

That was my mistake... I cut it off. So, I'm going to connect a jumper wire between the plate and the distributor body. I'm using the wire from the old condenser and will put an eyelet on the cut end. I have it in place temporarily but I'm waiting to get the new vacuum advance mounted before I cut it to length and crimp on the eyelet.

 

That will work. I've seen jumpers from a point screw to the vac control screw. These things happen. It's coming along nice. That grease should be fine. The original grease was a mixture of grease and something like sawdust from what I've read.........really!

 

I asked my uncle about the exposed portion of the shaft being oxidized (rusted) so quickly by the vinegar. He's a chemistry major and all around good guy. Here's his response:

"The acetic acid in vinegar reduced the iron but when mixed with air(containing O2), the O2 oxidized it back again. When submerged there isn't the free O2 to oxidize the iron."

 

The parts came in yesterday and I'm working on reassembly this morning. We'll see how far I get before football...

 

The good news is I have the distributor back together. The bad news is that it looks like the gear on the old distributor is 180* off from the rebuilt distributor.

I put the gear on the new one so the dimple is in the same direction as the rotor, the same way it came apart. Is this correct?

If so, would it be a bad idea to turn the oil pump shaft with a long screw driver to align it with the distributor?

 

Ok, I have the distributor in and I ended up moving it one more tooth counter clock wise so I would have more room to get a box wrench on the hold down bolt.

Here are some photos of the reassembly:

















Here are both distributors side by side to show the difference in the shaft position when the gear is on 180* off (on the left).



The oil pump shaft:



The final result!



I ran the car with no springs on the mechanical advance and set the timing to 32*. Then I used a blue spring and a yellow spring per the chart.



My goal was to avoid having any mechanical advance at idle. With the springs my initial advance was right at 10*. I haven't had a chance to play with the vacuum advance yet but I will do that once I have a hand held vacuum pump to test with. I did get to take the car out on the road for the first time in probably 5 years (for fuel, was way low), so that was great.

Thanks for everyone's help and input and I'll follow up after I get the vacuum advance dialed in.

 

I saw that but didn't know the "why" and I was ready to get the distributor back together without hunting for a hex screw. I'll move it soon when I have some time.