Locked Mechanical Timing

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Dicer

Dicer

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Doing a forensic teardown on a garage find 318, and notice the mechanical advance not working at all. After a thorough teardown found the weight arms bent upwards and placing weights in a bind. As you can see in the photo, and as well circular scrapes in the bottom of the housing. The only thing I can think of is a screw might have been dropped, although nothing showed up. Anything else I should check that may have cause this….
@halifaxhops I see more business coming your way...lol

distributor.JPG
 
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My theory....
Cause of bending, PO with a hammer to the top of the shaft where the rotor sits.

Cause of marks on housing, the pivot of the weights are rubbing on the housing.
 
AND NOW yet another annoying story from the old days.

In the early 70's, in the Navy, had a part time job at the NAS Miramar auto hobby shop. Couple of guys brought in a late 60's Ford they'd tuned up, into the "tune up bay" and it would barely run and move. They had worked on the thing off base somewhere, I have no idea how they managed to get it there.

I SWEAR TO GOD this is the truth best of my memory.

First, they had replaced the plug wires and put them in place THE WRONG ROTATION. This means the engine was only firing on 2 cylinders, and cross firing on "some" others.

After getting it on the Allen machine, here's the rest of what I found

The points, with no lube at all on the rubbing block, were gapped almost closed, and opening purely by luck. It just might be they were not in fact opening on every cylinder.

The vacuum advance can was ruptured, so no vacuum advance

There was no functioning mechanical advance, because at some point someone had dropped a screw inside. This means, they now need a rebuilt distributor, because the advance mechanism was damaged..

So plug wires wrong rotation, points almost not opening, no vacuum nor no mechanical advance. This was the early 70's and I can still remember that.
 
67Dart273 said:
AND NOW yet another annoying story from the old days.

In the early 70's, in the Navy, had a part time job at the NAS Miramar auto hobby shop. Couple of guys brought in a late 60's Ford they'd tuned up, into the "tune up bay" and it would barely run and move. They had worked on the thing off base somewhere, I have no idea how they managed to get it there.

I SWEAR TO GOD this is the truth best of my memory.

First, they had replaced the plug wires and put them in place THE WRONG ROTATION. This means the engine was only firing on 2 cylinders, and cross firing on "some" others.

After getting it on the Allen machine, here's the rest of what I found

The points, with no lube at all on the rubbing block, were gapped almost closed, and opening purely by luck. It just might be they were not in fact opening on every cylinder.

The vacuum advance can was ruptured, so no vacuum advance

There was no functioning mechanical advance, because at some point someone had dropped a screw inside. This means, they now need a rebuilt distributor, because the advance mechanism was damaged..

So plug wires wrong rotation, points almost not opening, no vacuum nor no mechanical advance. This was the early 70's and I can still remember that.
Click to expand...

I dig your stories too. You keep right on with um.
 
67Dart273 said:
AND NOW yet another annoying story from the old days.

In the early 70's, in the Navy, had a part time job at the NAS Miramar auto hobby shop. Couple of guys brought in a late 60's Ford they'd tuned up, into the "tune up bay" and it would barely run and move. They had worked on the thing off base somewhere, I have no idea how they managed to get it there.

I SWEAR TO GOD this is the truth best of my memory.

First, they had replaced the plug wires and put them in place THE WRONG ROTATION. This means the engine was only firing on 2 cylinders, and cross firing on "some" others.

After getting it on the Allen machine, here's the rest of what I found

The points, with no lube at all on the rubbing block, were gapped almost closed, and opening purely by luck. It just might be they were not in fact opening on every cylinder.

The vacuum advance can was ruptured, so no vacuum advance

There was no functioning mechanical advance, because at some point someone had dropped a screw inside. This means, they now need a rebuilt distributor, because the advance mechanism was damaged..

So plug wires wrong rotation, points almost not opening, no vacuum nor no mechanical advance. This was the early 70's and I can still remember that.
Click to expand...


Yup, keep up with the stories. Can you remember which Allen machine you had?
 
Thanks guys. Wish I'd taken a few more photos. The Marines have Miramar now, and some time back a look at the overhead map shots shows the jarheads finally tore down the old wood hobbyshop building. If you go to the MCAS Miramar website, the hobbyshop is now a nice clean spic and span place, and sounds like it costs MONEY to use it. (real money)
 
yellow rose said:
Yup, keep up with the stories. Can you remember which Allen machine you had?
Click to expand...

I'll see if I can find a photo. It was a scope, and had the exhaust analyzer. The shop bought it new in ?72ish?

Similar to this without the bottom section, which was starter/ battery/ charging system

74ef885642254a09a56cf6bed3ba4a31.jpg
 
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Sorry for the hijack. By the way, factory single point distributors have NEVER been "hi performance." They all suffered from spark scatter, and the vacuum advance changed dwell dramatically. You used to be able to buy (Dealer) a bushing kit from them, but they required a reamer/ burnisher much like the intermediate shaft bushings, to use them. Even "back in the day" I experimented with Accel and scored a hemi tach drive (for 440) that has a top ball bearing. And, at some point, I scored a Corvette breakerless (forerunner to HEI, small cap) and MODIFIED that to fit a small block. Unfortunately the machinist was AFU. A member on here bought that from me, I don't remember who

In other words, I'd "do something different" unless you are absolutely interested in "restore correct". One easy way "out" of single points is Pertronix
 
Dicer said:
Doing a forensic teardown on a garage find 318, and notice the mechanical advance not working at all. After a thorough teardown found the weight arms bent upwards and placing weights in a bind. As you can see in the photo, and as well circular scrapes in the bottom of the housing. The only thing I can think of is a screw might have been dropped, although nothing showed up. Anything else I should check that may have cause this….
@halifaxhops I see more business coming your way...lol

View attachment 1715644151
Click to expand...
Only way that happens is they beat the shaft into the housing. Prob bad bearings etc Get another core.
 
No “beatings” here, going with the screw got dropped and then wedged between the housing and weight arms. Bushings are in excellent condition and shaft not bent. Took the lower shaft to the press and gently bent the arms straight again, will be lubed and ready to go.
Ordered a HEI conversion kit and will be trying the HEI / points hybrid system and see were that takes me…

dist.JPG
 
Dicer said:
No “beatings” here, going with the screw got dropped and then wedged between the housing and weight arms. Bushings are in excellent condition and shaft not bent. Took the lower shaft to the press and gently bent the arms straight again, will be lubed and ready to go.
Ordered a HEI conversion kit and will be trying the HEI / points hybrid system and see were that takes me…

View attachment 1715644612
Click to expand...
That one looks nice the other one is a mess.
 
67Dart273 said:
GM HEI will not trigger from points
Click to expand...
Yes pretty sure they can if you install a 1000 ohm resister between the points. If you wish I could download a wiring diagram that shows it, also it shown working on the infamous youtube channel.


halifaxhops said:
That one looks nice the other one is a mess.
Click to expand...
Its the same distributor, shafts and weights...

dist.2.JPG
 
If it was me....I throw the whole thing in the dumpster and either buy a new one or better yet an entirely different distributor. My preference these days is the MSD Ready to Run units, though I don't claim they are the best....only very good.
 
67Dart273 said:
AND NOW yet another annoying story from the old days.

In the early 70's, in the Navy, had a part time job at the NAS Miramar auto hobby shop. Couple of guys brought in a late 60's Ford they'd tuned up, into the "tune up bay" and it would barely run and move. They had worked on the thing off base somewhere, I have no idea how they managed to get it there.

I SWEAR TO GOD this is the truth best of my memory.

First, they had replaced the plug wires and put them in place THE WRONG ROTATION. This means the engine was only firing on 2 cylinders, and cross firing on "some" others.

After getting it on the Allen machine, here's the rest of what I found

The points, with no lube at all on the rubbing block, were gapped almost closed, and opening purely by luck. It just might be they were not in fact opening on every cylinder.

The vacuum advance can was ruptured, so no vacuum advance

There was no functioning mechanical advance, because at some point someone had dropped a screw inside. This means, they now need a rebuilt distributor, because the advance mechanism was damaged..

So plug wires wrong rotation, points almost not opening, no vacuum nor no mechanical advance. This was the early 70's and I can still remember that.
Click to expand...

I have an oddball distributor story for you folks too, if you want hear it.
Late '70's, I have a repair shop. A customer comes in with a Jeep J10 pickup with 6 cyl. and wants a tuneup. No problem I thought. I asked him how long it's been since the last one. He says it only has 45,000 miles on it, and he's had at least 10 tuneups in that period of time (both at the dealer and other independents like me). I'm now thinking, what the heck is going on with this thing? He also says he's replaced the exhaust manifold 4 times in that time too, due to cracks/leaks. I figure this thing must be running way to lean to cause all that or that the timing is way off. He said that the timing has been checked repeatedly and it's set correctly. Anyway, I get the Jeep into the bay and start pulling parts. Sure enough, the plugs are just FRIED. All the other parts look good, but, I put points and condenser in anyway. Compression tests great. Put everything back together, fire it up, and set the initial timing. Spot on and idles great. I rev it up and timing moves smoothly but, engine sounds sluggish. Took it around the block and MAN, what a pig. No get up and go at all. I recheck everything, and whoa.....what the heck? I put the timing light back on it to verify it was advancing, and lo and behold, I just realized that the timing wasn't advancing, it was retarding! I'm thinking, how can this be? Well, I found out. Seems AMC uses parts for other companies so they don't have to reinvent the wheel. In this case, they use a GM distributor. Well, the GM version distributor turns the other way, thus the weights are put in the other way around. This stupid thing was put together at the factory wrong! I took the distributor apart, flipped the weights around, and now it would actually advance instead of retard. I couldn't believe the difference in how it ran. The customer couldn't believe it either. He said it NEVER ran that good from the day he bought it new. I had a customer for life after that, and he never had to replace another exhaust manifold, or, have a tuneup every 4-5,000 miles.
 
That is FUNNY!!! However, for some years Jeeps WERE hard on exhaust manifolds "through the smog years"
 
Last I checked, there are still some models of Jeeps where the exhaust manifolds are worth more than the rest of the Jeep...
 
Bad idea using a b/res with HEI because it has internal current limiting. Using a BR further reduces spark energy. You are better off getting an MSD #8207 E core coil [ or similar ] since you have gone to all this trouble. Remove/bypass the BR, it is not needed. You will get a much hotter spark & you can use 0.45-0.060" plug gaps. The module now switches the heavy coil current, which allows for the better coil & no BR.
 
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