View single post by Tom Bradley
 Posted: 02-12-2020 07:11 pm
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Tom Bradley

 

Joined: 07-15-2013
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discogodfather wrote:
What I see taking them apart (also took my 25D apart) is that there isn't much difference on the shafts. The 25D Lucas unit has what appears to be a thin spiral cut channel on the side of it, and the cutout seems to be in a slightly different place. All the seals and bushings are similar. The centrifugal advance assemblies are a lot different.

Could it be this 25D I have is not a special Lotus unit? I don't think I had any oil leaks, at least the inside of the distributor is clean, nothing in the cap. Maybe I am looking in the wrong place?


I also pulled one of my distributors apart and it looks the same as yours. I think the spiral acts as a pump to push the oil back towards the engine. As long as you are not getting any oil inside the distributor it should be OK.

The centrifugal advance on the JH was made specific for the Lotus engine. It is unlikely that a general purpose distributor like Powerspark will be the same. If you use it, your car will probably run OK, but may not have the performance or smooth acceleration that you will get with the original.

Personally I think that going back to mechanical points is a bad idea. These are much more prone to problems than even a basic solid state switch. The electronic switches in the Ignitor 1 are unlikely to be bad if the car was running at all. When these go bad, they usually die completely, not get unreliable. If the car was running poorly it was more likely caused by other things like a bad distributor cap or poor electrical connections somewhere.

BTW, Pertronix does make an Ignitor 2 specifically for the 25D4 distributor. That is what I have on mine and has been working well for several years now. It is available from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Pertronix-9LU-142A-Ignitor-Lucas-Cylinder/dp/B00AWQRJRO