Listen to this noise...

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Murray said:
Doesn't anyone use a stethoscope anymore.
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Nope... they get on here with a vague description or a 20 sec video and you're supposed to know exactly what's wrong even though they have it right in front of them to diagnose. Especially when this kind of thing is just so darn common...'not at all' and after every usual suspect is gone over and all idividually experienced combined anomalies are tossed into the ring as well... the op comes back with cause he could have found if he had looked FIRST. Is it laziness? Idk
 
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MOPAROFFICIAL said:
Nope... they get on here with a vague description or a 20 sec video and you're supposed to know exactly what's wrong even though they have it right in front of them to diagnose. Especially when this kind of thing is just so darn common...'not at all' and after every usual suspect is gone over and all idividually experienced combined anomalies are tossed into the ring as well... the op comes back with cause he could have found if he had looked FIRST. Is it laziness? Idk
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Well you guys all helped me out a lot. I have only had a classic car for a few months and clearly am new to this site as well. I was fairly sure it was the distributor, but I didn’t understand how and why. Appreciate everyone’s knowledge. Even with my vague descriptions and short videos I have had so much luck on here.
 
The rotor is not pushed down all the way!
 
looks like a lotta brass dust in this cap!
AJ/FormS said:
Sounds like the rotor is slapping the towers; pop the cap and look.
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Scanch said:
Yes when I removed the cap the rotor can move up and down by hand. The contacts are all getting worn down on the cap at the bottom of the step and starts to grind into the plastic. Fairly sure you found the answer with that shaft bushing.
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Sounds like A/J and I may have found it? The rotor fits on pretty tightly and should be pushed on pretty hard. If the nylon gear is still fastened with its roll pin, there should not be 1/8 up and down play on that part, but there is another place to check: there is a spring clip under the felt wick that holds the upper part of the rotor base, that may be missing or maybe not seated as there should be very little up and down movement on that rotor. You see what it can do when it moves.
dist.jpg
 
So I removed the distributor today. There was no oil felt. The spring clip seems as if it is the wrong clip or the shaft has worn enough that there is now vertical play. I also found a piece of plastic that I can’t identify. Does this look like the correct clip? Is this shaft worn down?
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pishta said:
Sounds like A/J and I may have found it? The rotor fits on pretty tightly and should be pushed on pretty hard. If the nylon gear is still fastened with its roll pin, there should not be 1/8 up and down play on that part, but there is another place to check: there is a spring clip under the felt wick that holds the upper part of the rotor base, that may be missing or maybe not seated as there should be very little up and down movement on that rotor. You see what it can do when it moves.
View attachment 1715519719
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So I am fairly sure the shaft has been worn down over the years where the spring clip rests which has given the vertical play I am experiencing. Or I have the wrong clip. Now I am trying to figure out if I can order or make a bigger spring clip to fill the gap or if I need to get a new shaft. Any recommendations?
 
The clip is correct. The shaft is normal.
 
How about another distributor? Ill mail you one if I can find it...
That clip may seat itself when the cam plate is on. Ill have to look tomorrow for that points I'm sure I saved.
 
pishta said:
Sounds like A/J and I may have found it? The rotor fits on pretty tightly and should be pushed on pretty hard. If the nylon gear is still fastened with its roll pin, there should not be 1/8 up and down play on that part, but there is another place to check: there is a spring clip under the felt wick that holds the upper part of the rotor base, that may be missing or maybe not seated as there should be very little up and down movement on that rotor. You see what it can do when it moves.
View attachment 1715519719
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So I am fairly sure the shaft has been worn down over the years where the spring clip rests which has given the vertical play I am experiencing. Or I have the wrong clip. Now I am trying to figure out if I can find/make a bigger clip spring to fill the gap or if I need to get a new shaft. Any recommendations?
pishta said:
How about another distributor? Ill mail you one if I can find it...
That clip may seat itself when the cam plate is on. Ill have to look tomorrow for that points I'm sure I saved.
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I mocked up a bigger clip with a paper clip and I no longer had that vertical play. I guess I just wanted to learn how/if I could fix the problem before I decided to replace it. I am 28 years old and I bought this car because I really wanted to learn about these old beautiful beasts that came long before me. If you happen to have one on hand that would be awesome. One of the reasons I went the Mopar route was the community I saw.
 
That clip does not have to be tight, the parts ain't going anywhere. I have run my distributor for hundreds of miles without the clip. Far as I can tell, it's just an assembly-line aid.
What you think is wear, or what looks like wear, is not wear; that is how it is made. When it has oil on it, it is a bearing; it only moves a few degrees.
The nylon parts you found appear to be part of an old point set.
 
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AJ/FormS said:
That clip does not have to be tight, the parts ain't going anywhere. I have run my distributor for hundreds of miles without the clip. Far as I can tell, it's just an assembly-line aid.
What you think is wear, or what looks like wear, is not wear; that is how it is made. When it has oil on it, it is a bearing; it only moves a few degrees.
The nylon parts you found appear to be part of an old point set.[/QUOTE
AJ/FormS said:
That clip does not have to be tight, the parts ain't going anywhere. I have run my distributor for hundreds of miles without the clip. Far as I can tell, it's just an assembly-line aid.
What you think is wear, or what looks like wear, is not wear; that is how it is made. When it has oil on it, it is a bearing; it only moves a few degrees.
The nylon parts you found appear to be part of an old point set.
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I could see how the breaker plate wouldn’t allow the cam to have much vertical play and I believe you have driven without the clip. That just seems to be the only thing that is allowing any play causing my issue. I thought the function of the clip was to keep the cam in place on top of the shaft and against the governor weights? This is the amount of play I get on the cam in the second picture. Appreciate the input!
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Now that you have the distributor out of the engine and in your hands, I would put it back together and just spin it by hand. This test alone will determine if indeed the noise is coming from the assembly.

You may also have a mismatched parts from different manufactures’, such as a rotor that that may have came from O Reilly’s and a cap from Wal-Mart, they may be correct for the application but the manufactures tolerances may play a part here.

From all the pictures I have seen nothing that really points out a problem area, but I have not seen a picture of the distributor gear and its end play gap.

KosmicKuda said:
There is a 4 page article at slantsix.org comparing caps and rotors from different manufacturers.
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@Scanchsaid
I thought the function of the clip was to keep the cam in place on top of the shaft and against the governor weights?

It is. At the distributor manufacturing plant. Once installed, it only keeps the guts together when you pull the rotor off. The rest of the time, gravity and the packaging constraints, inside the assembled unit, keep it all together.
 
Dicer said:
Now that you have the distributor out of the engine and in your hands, I would put it back together and just spin it by hand. This test alone will determine if indeed the noise is coming from the assembly.

You may also have a mismatched parts from different manufactures’, such as a rotor that that may have came from O Reilly’s and a cap from Wal-Mart, they may be correct for the application but the manufactures tolerances may play a part here.

From all the pictures I have seen nothing that really points out a problem area, but I have not seen a picture of the distributor gear and its end play gap.
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After all the information from you guys I pinpointed the noise to the rotor hitting the contact points in the cap for sure. If around an 1/8 inch of vertical play is normal for a cam on a distributor than I am thinking I could have the wrong cam or perhaps the wrong rotor? I am thinking I will end up getting a NOS replacement and still try and figure out this one on the side. Even though it is with the service manual and FABO...fixing a problem on this car is a different type of winning.
 
Scanch said:
After all the information from you guys I pinpointed the noise to the rotor hitting the contact points in the cap for sure. If around an 1/8 inch of vertical play is normal for a cam on a distributor than I am thinking I could have the wrong cam or perhaps the wrong rotor? I am thinking I will end up getting a NOS replacement and still try and figure out this one on the side. Even though it is with the service manual and FABO...fixing a problem on this car is a different type of winning.
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Sometimes I actually have to smack the rotor with the palm of my hand to get it seated all the way.
 
So the noise has been fixed. The rotor indeed was hitting the contacts in the cap. The 1/8 inch of vertical play on the cam was allowing this to occur. To fix this I made a washer to set under the spring clip. Funny enough this washer was made out of a water bottle cap just to make sure my assumptions on the rotor were correct. Yes that sounds shade tree as it gets I realize that. I used the same type washer to insulate the grounded field on my alternator to convert it back to a dual field a few weeks back. I most likely will end up replacing the distributor still , but she runs. If anyone has replaced theirs with an electric one and is willing to give me a good deal let me know! Thank you all for all your knowledge!
 
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