Is this distributor pickup destroyed and what could have caused issues?
- Thread starter DartThis74
- Start date
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Only way you wore down that irion core part (for lack of a better term) that sticks out of the pickup is the reluctor is hitting it. Between that and the rotor I would say the upper shaft of the distributor is bent beyond the tolerances in the fsm. Seen it many times. Really depends what you want to do from here, Get a store bough and hope the curve is close, rebuild it, replace the damaged pickup, cap and rotor and pray. Have to figure out the reason it caused it first, Good news it is all in the distributor.
DartThis74
Well-Known Member
Sorry folks i'm a little slow to respond, 1.5y/o child takes a lot of my time during the day haha.
@halifaxhops
@Bewy
@Killer6
Here are pictures after taking the distributor apart.
Here is a much better side view of the pickup it is totally flush to the surface. A note on this, I did the dollar bill method and interestingly enough, there indeed seem to be roughly the 0.008" gap or so between the pickup and the reluctor teeth. Additionally, if the reluctor was hitting the pickup, shouldn't I see wear marks on the white portion on the face of this ? Which I don't see here...
The face of the reluctor blades. I don't have a trained eye, maybe someone can chime in, but I don't see damage as if the reluctor had been hitting the pickup any. As in, I don't see the sharp edges of the face rolled over or affected.
The plate the vacuum advance connects to to push and pull seemed as though it was seized and I could not physically rotate it inside the distributor when it was all assembled. After pulling it out I can see the contact studs showed zero wear marks as if it corroded to the plate itself or something and never allowed it to glide ? The little bit of wear mark you see is from me playing with it after it was removed to see how it should rotate on in this assembly. I guess this is evidence to support that the vacuum advance cannister was indeed broken, as suspected from sucking on the hose to draw vacuum.
Other note: There is almost no play in the shaft when it was installed and I suspect should fall within the 0.006" tolerance the dodge manual states she shaft should move if pulled on. If the upper portion of the shaft was perhaps bent to some degree allowing the rotation of the reluctor to interfere with the pickup I should certainly see that, I suspect, if the shaft rotated ? I just can't see that amount of concentricity being out of spec when I rotated the shaft when I pulled the distributor out. As in, I don't see any wobble to the reluctor getting closer / further away from the pickup based upon the centerline of the shaft....
There is vertical play if I pull up on the reluctor to some extent, what I can tell it's the fractions of tolerance play from the bushing installed at the base of the housing to keep the shaft from pulling out + the play given with the tiny little spring clamp inside the shaft that keeps the device for the spring weights at the bottom to expand during centrifugal force from pulling up. All of this like I said, if I pull up on the reluctor, gives a total vertical tolerance play of roughly 2.5 or so mm. Most of this play comes from the tiny spring clamp groove that seem much wider than the actual tiny spring clamp it's.
@halifaxhops
@Bewy
@Killer6
Here are pictures after taking the distributor apart.
Here is a much better side view of the pickup it is totally flush to the surface. A note on this, I did the dollar bill method and interestingly enough, there indeed seem to be roughly the 0.008" gap or so between the pickup and the reluctor teeth. Additionally, if the reluctor was hitting the pickup, shouldn't I see wear marks on the white portion on the face of this ? Which I don't see here...
The face of the reluctor blades. I don't have a trained eye, maybe someone can chime in, but I don't see damage as if the reluctor had been hitting the pickup any. As in, I don't see the sharp edges of the face rolled over or affected.
The plate the vacuum advance connects to to push and pull seemed as though it was seized and I could not physically rotate it inside the distributor when it was all assembled. After pulling it out I can see the contact studs showed zero wear marks as if it corroded to the plate itself or something and never allowed it to glide ? The little bit of wear mark you see is from me playing with it after it was removed to see how it should rotate on in this assembly. I guess this is evidence to support that the vacuum advance cannister was indeed broken, as suspected from sucking on the hose to draw vacuum.
Other note: There is almost no play in the shaft when it was installed and I suspect should fall within the 0.006" tolerance the dodge manual states she shaft should move if pulled on. If the upper portion of the shaft was perhaps bent to some degree allowing the rotation of the reluctor to interfere with the pickup I should certainly see that, I suspect, if the shaft rotated ? I just can't see that amount of concentricity being out of spec when I rotated the shaft when I pulled the distributor out. As in, I don't see any wobble to the reluctor getting closer / further away from the pickup based upon the centerline of the shaft....
There is vertical play if I pull up on the reluctor to some extent, what I can tell it's the fractions of tolerance play from the bushing installed at the base of the housing to keep the shaft from pulling out + the play given with the tiny little spring clamp inside the shaft that keeps the device for the spring weights at the bottom to expand during centrifugal force from pulling up. All of this like I said, if I pull up on the reluctor, gives a total vertical tolerance play of roughly 2.5 or so mm. Most of this play comes from the tiny spring clamp groove that seem much wider than the actual tiny spring clamp it's.
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DartThis74
Well-Known Member
Additional question I have is: Is it necessary to apply a specific type of grease to any components inside the distributor that require sliding or rotation such as the vacuum advance plate or the weights in the bottom? Or is this a big no no, because it can attract debris? I do live along the coast in Houston area so very high humidity environment.
point lube comes to mind
Put a distributor in it.
Mopar head
DoW nuisance Alien-Squatch extermination team
It`s just parts, buy em.
For the THIRD time, there is no damage visible on the p/up. There is also NO SIGN of contact between the reluctor teeth & the pole piece [ post #28 ] & it would be veeeeeeery obvious on the reluctor teeth if contact was made. The pole piece is sticking out very slightly.....& that is all it needs. I have seen p/ups like that & they work perfectly well.
The coil is pushed onto the pole piece. Cannot see the back of the coil in any of the pics, but there might be a gap there & you could push the coil a bit further. It might make you feel better, so go ahead, but it will work perfectly fine as is. I described a 5 min test in post #19 to test it. So easy.
The coil is pushed onto the pole piece. Cannot see the back of the coil in any of the pics, but there might be a gap there & you could push the coil a bit further. It might make you feel better, so go ahead, but it will work perfectly fine as is. I described a 5 min test in post #19 to test it. So easy.
I should have added:
[1] if the p/up has an operative vac adv unit AND the vac adv was hooked up
[2] & has done a lot of miles
[3] Then you might consider replacing the p/up
[4] because every time the VA arm moves, it flexes the p/up wires & they eventually break.
[5] This can be checked with an ohmmeter by flexing the wires during an ohms test.
[6] Note that a replacement p/up may not be made in the US like the original....
[1] if the p/up has an operative vac adv unit AND the vac adv was hooked up
[2] & has done a lot of miles
[3] Then you might consider replacing the p/up
[4] because every time the VA arm moves, it flexes the p/up wires & they eventually break.
[5] This can be checked with an ohmmeter by flexing the wires during an ohms test.
[6] Note that a replacement p/up may not be made in the US like the original....
He seems to have lost faith in what he has and a new replacement is cheap enough.It`s just parts, buy em.
DartThis74
Well-Known Member
The reason I'm reluctant to some degree is I have yet to find evidence that pickups on these distributors are almost nearly flush to the surface of the coil, like how mine shows. If you could show me evidence that they exist then that certainly could let me know that, the replacement pickups these days are made totally different and it sticks out beyond the surface, as opposed to possibly NOS or original remanufactured distributors using high quality parts truly have pickups that look very identical to what I have. I have on hand a new replacement pickup, someone dropped off and it sticks out off the surface around 1mm. I know I keep talking like I'm going against the grain of what y'all are saying, but I'm trying to understand what is normal. I certainly don't have expertise in this sort of thing, but I have no idea what you have seen through your experience working on these type of distributors. When my pickup looks different than everything else I see for this particular distributor, it just makes me question why and I want to understand, that is all.
Not my decision to make, or convince you. I'm not in that hunt. I just made a recommendation because you seem to not trust that distributor now. I kinda don't blame you. Lots of good, affordable ones on the market, plus we have a really great member here @halifaxhops who can set you up with a nice distributor specifically curved for your application.
From Rat Rod Al's for sale thread.
Used on left, New on right.
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Used on left, New on right.
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IDK, I would have started with replacing the rotor first, new or used. Their lies your problem to start with. Yes, you could have a bad vacuum advance can but it would not have an effect on engine stumble. As Bewy mentioned several times, the pickup post protruding pass the coil has nothing to do with its operation. The reluctor's teeth do not protruded outward at the same length most of the time. The gap measurement given by the "book" is used to compensate for this flaw
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This is the meat of the problem, not making a good electrical contact with the center post, the spring riding along the outside of the center post having little to no contact. An easy fix, I for one have bent this spring before, it happens leaning over fenders, pulling on plugs wires, sometimes just not enough room to lift the cap up, but to slide it over. LOL
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This is the meat of the problem, not making a good electrical contact with the center post, the spring riding along the outside of the center post having little to no contact. An easy fix, I for one have bent this spring before, it happens leaning over fenders, pulling on plugs wires, sometimes just not enough room to lift the cap up, but to slide it over. LOL
I agree with all you say here, but the WHY it boogered the rotor up is not being addressed. I'm guessing the plastic collar that holds the shaft from coming up has broken and failed. He said he could not move the shaft side to side, but I never saw where he tried to LIFT the shaft. There should be little play there if any. If the shaft moved up enough to crap the rotor all up, then it's entirely possible the distributor shaft came out of the intermediate shaft. I've seen that happen. The rotor looked suspiciously similar to his.
DartThis74
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately I did not take a picture of the shaft, but this image is a screenshot from some YouTube video and is the best I can come up with at the moment being away from the car.
If I push up on the shaft itself from the bottom, the plastic retaining collar installed at the base, just outside the distributor cast housing, has hardly any tolerance in play, it is not broken or seems damaged or anything.
The majority of vertical play that I see if I pull up on the reluctor is coming from the metal part (the actual name escapes me) that the weights at the bottom are retained in during centrifugal force, that is held in place by the tiny spring clip. The groove cut into the shaft that the spring clip sits in has quite a bit of width when compared to the diameter of the spring clip. This poor drawing I made shows what I'm talking about.
- Green Dot= diameter of spring clip inside the groove.
- Blue = tolerance that the spring clip can travel until it tops out and not allow the metal weight retainer the reluctor installs on from traveling any further.
So, with the tight amount of play from the plastic shaft retainer + the additional amount of play given from the spring clip allowing travel of the metal weight retainer. The reluctor can travel about 2.5 mm if I pull up on it when the distributor is fully assembled.
With this said, would this be too much travel causing the problem where the rotor traveled so much into the cap that it could have bent that spring tab?
Good! Then the only other "guess" I have is either the wrong rotor and or cap was used, or the rotor was not put back properly after it was removed.
There's really only two ways the reluctor can contact the pick-up.
1. Worn shaft assembly
2. Bent shaft.
The check for the first is the same whether its a points or a magnetic pickup distributor. The spec is the same too.
If there is more than .006" axial (side play) its worn. Considering that's close to the air gap distance, it could have been hit.
For a wobbly shaft you can just check the clearance while turning the shaft.
The white bushing in that youtube photo is just a spacer. The governer sits on top of that.
Shop manuals are your friends. ;)
If it checks out, put a new cap and rotor on it.
There's an oil felt in the shaft. Put a a drop or two of oil on it.
With your distributor apart, might as well document it. At minimum, P/n (on the tag), degrees in the governor's slots (stamped), degrees in the vac advance.
1. Worn shaft assembly
2. Bent shaft.
The check for the first is the same whether its a points or a magnetic pickup distributor. The spec is the same too.
If there is more than .006" axial (side play) its worn. Considering that's close to the air gap distance, it could have been hit.
For a wobbly shaft you can just check the clearance while turning the shaft.
The white bushing in that youtube photo is just a spacer. The governer sits on top of that.
Shop manuals are your friends. ;)
If it checks out, put a new cap and rotor on it.
There's an oil felt in the shaft. Put a a drop or two of oil on it.
With your distributor apart, might as well document it. At minimum, P/n (on the tag), degrees in the governor's slots (stamped), degrees in the vac advance.
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Kendog 170
Let the boy go !
I haven't been into too many electronic distributors but I can't imagine the piece sticking out of the pick-up would be an issue as long as the gap is correct. If the pick up is damaged by the shaft being bent or loose from a bad bushing, the reluctor teeth would have to be destroyed.
I did that to a rotor decades ago. Instead of putting the cap on straight I got it over the distributor and slid it into place. Guessing the center cap button caught the rotor and bent the contact. Rookie mistake!
DartThis74
Well-Known Member
Thank you all for your wisdom in helping me on this issue. I should have a new vacuum canister delivered today and I'll assemble the distributor back together and try to fire the car up by this weekend.
DartThis74
Well-Known Member
A question I have @halifaxhops or anyone else... I purchased a new vacuum advance canister for this distributor and got to trying to install it at the original pin location on the advance plate just under the pickup and it was a struggle and put it in a bind. I am now realizing that the arm is indeed designed different from what came off the distributor that was broken. It connects just fine to the pin hole location on the backside of the pickup though.
I purchased this vacuum advance canister from Mancini racing claiming to be for small block Mopar.
Left is new canister, right is old
I purchased this vacuum advance canister from Mancini racing claiming to be for small block Mopar.
Left is new canister, right is old
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