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| Joined: | 06-23-2013 |
| Location: | Mission Viejo, California USA |
| Posts: | 90 |
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At 74,200 miles I installed a new timing belt, pulley and idler hub (Care of Peter Van Ruth, AKA Down Under). But the gas milege had started dropping off last week from 16 to 14 MPG with the last fueling and the car was getting harder to start and acceleration was not what it had been. The idle was sounding funny too.
Spark Plugs & Timing:
At 74,400 new plugs and timing was set. Yup the plugs needed to be replaced with one insulator that had a chunk missing. Some improvement was felt but it was still not quite right. Then I see oil is filling up the block pockets under the distributor and aux housing, blast I think the O-ring on that ruddy distributor housing doesn't last long!
Diagnosis:
But that wasn't it. Upon further investigation at 74,600 the distributor cap had enough oil in it that the rotor could re-wet its self with each rotation. How the car would actually run with so much oil in the distributor cap was beyond me at this point! So dissassembly started last night to find that the shaft has no actaul seal and only a screw groove slinger thread in the OD is provided to keep the oil from migrating into the area where the fly weights, pertronix pickup and rotor exist in the housing. Because it is horizontal, the oil ingress once it starts has to get about a 1/2 deep before the oil can drain from the unit. Although some is going to seep from between the cap and housing. This "flame thrower" distributor has perhaps 27,000 miles on it from new.
The Fix:
I put an O-ring inside the housing between the bushings that guide the distributor shaft in the hope that this will temporarily reduce the oil migration. But the shims at the other end where the dogged hub is roll pined to the shaft is gauled. Looks like a good place for a thrust bearing as the oil pumps pressure relif spring continually loads the distributor shaft onto the end of the housing all the time.
The Fun Never Ends:
Time to order a poly pack from McMaster for a proper seal solution and a thrust bearing for the shaft as well. Oh the test drive last night was adorned with wonderfully hard acceleration all the way to 6K and plenty of off idle grunt that had been missing for the last 2 weeks making me think the 12 pound Aluminium flywheel was a bit too light for day to day driving.
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Last edited on 12-17-2016 02:01 pm by atgparker