Starting to rebuild the Allen distributor machine
Not dumb at all, and in reality, you can do your own distributors with a little "homemade" stuff.
I think it might have been crackedback ?? showed a simple way of using a protractor and straight edge to measure how far an advance moves
One guy's home method:
The object is this:
1---Have a way to spin the distributor and to measure that RPM. You have to know "at what RPM" the advance is kicking in
2---Preferably -- as this one did originally, and will when repaired, trigger a tach directly off the machine drive shaft, so that any problems in the dist do not affect RPM readings
3--Trigger a timing strobe off the distributor. THIS IS the big big key, because these strobes can be read all the way around as the dist. fires, thus showing you VERY quickly if a shaft is bent, loose, worn, etc, and of course the strobes tell you what the mechanical AND vacuum advance is doing.
4--Vacuum pump with a controllable needle valve and accurate vacuum gauge, so that you can test vacuum advance units. Very easy, you just open the valve, and see what the advance is doing at what vacuum
Here is a photo of the strobes in operation ---this is a Sun, not an Allen, but the idea is the same. I believe this is a V12 dist. You can see one weak strobe down right at the bottom, one big one in the middle, and one up by the person's thumb. If these do not read "the same" all the way around, they show that bearings are worn, shaft is bent, etc, because each time the points fire or the trigger "triggers" it should happen exactly so many degrees apart (45*) on a V8, or 90 at the crank
The one below is every 60*
http://www.tomyang.net/cars/ferrari719.htm
Not dumb at all, and in reality, you can do your own distributors with a little "homemade" stuff.
I think it might have been crackedback ?? showed a simple way of using a protractor and straight edge to measure how far an advance moves
One guy's home method:
The object is this:
1---Have a way to spin the distributor and to measure that RPM. You have to know "at what RPM" the advance is kicking in
2---Preferably -- as this one did originally, and will when repaired, trigger a tach directly off the machine drive shaft, so that any problems in the dist do not affect RPM readings
3--Trigger a timing strobe off the distributor. THIS IS the big big key, because these strobes can be read all the way around as the dist. fires, thus showing you VERY quickly if a shaft is bent, loose, worn, etc, and of course the strobes tell you what the mechanical AND vacuum advance is doing.
4--Vacuum pump with a controllable needle valve and accurate vacuum gauge, so that you can test vacuum advance units. Very easy, you just open the valve, and see what the advance is doing at what vacuum
Here is a photo of the strobes in operation ---this is a Sun, not an Allen, but the idea is the same. I believe this is a V12 dist. You can see one weak strobe down right at the bottom, one big one in the middle, and one up by the person's thumb. If these do not read "the same" all the way around, they show that bearings are worn, shaft is bent, etc, because each time the points fire or the trigger "triggers" it should happen exactly so many degrees apart (45*) on a V8, or 90 at the crank
The one below is every 60*
http://www.tomyang.net/cars/ferrari719.htm
