Here is another distributor story, well I first thought that is what it
was. The timing on my Alpine would advance it self about 10 degrees all
on its own. I would set it and then rap it up and put the light back on
it and be at 23 plus. Put it back to 13 and later it would be 23 no
flutter rock solid. Decided it was the weight sticking and got my box of
distributors out and used the best bits out of three for my this one has
to be good distributor. While I was lining up the timing marks to swap
distributors I noticed the damper would turn a bit with out turning the
crank. Shortly after that I noticed I did not bend the locking tabs to
hold the damper bolt resulting in a loose bolt and a cracked damper.....Jim
Jan Eyerman wrote:
>I also suggest that if your British car suffers from random stalling, check
>the insulation on the BOTTOM of the wire from the connector to the points.
>
>When I installed a Petronix unit, I used a vacuum gauge, tach and an
>adjustable timing light and the shop manual. I then matched RPM's and advance
>numbers to make sure the vacuum unit was working and the machanical advance
>was working correctly. Took several hours to get everything just right, but
>now my 56.5 horsepower Hillman seems to have found 5-10 extra horses
>somewhere.
>
>A Singer Gazelle I once owned threw one of it's advance weights right through
>the side of the distributor!
>
>
>Jan Eyerman
>1959 Hillman Minx Series III DeLuxe
>1973 Hillman Avenger DL
>
>
>
>Jay_Laifman@countrywide.com wrote:
>I'd like to share two significant experiences I've had with distributors.
>Both cars had bad ones and once they were fixed, the driving was
>dramatically different.
>
>Back in 1985, my Alpine and I parted while I went to school and it sat in
>my folk's driveway. I then bought a Porsche 911. In 1990, I went to get
>my Alpine running again. She basically started up and went. It was a
>great joy and fun to be driving her again. But, compared to the 911, she
>was low on power and really seemed to be in need of a rebuild. Because it
>had been quite a while since I had driven it, and my emotions made it seem
>good simply because it was running, and I expected the 911 to be different,
>I didn't realize there could be something specific wrong. So, I jumped
>into it, and because of the low power I figured any Alpine simply needed
>more, I went full bore with the dual Webers, Holbay head, Holbay cam and
>everything else. Then as I picked up the engine from the shop helping me
>on it (after spending all the money on the engine) he commented that my
>distributor weights had be rusted and I was not getting full advance. He
>fully rebuilt it. My car with all the Holbay stuff of course ran
>fantastic. But, in looking back, had that distributor not been bad, I
>probably would have been much happier with its performance and I never
>would have spent all that money on the Holbay stuff - admittedly a silver
>lining.
>
>Now comes my recent purchase of a Porsche 356. I have spent countless
>hours trying to get that thing running right. Despite all my work, it just
>didn't strike me as anything special, and I simply could not understand
>what all the hype was about. And, I certainly couldn't understand why
>many 356 owners, even those with more money than they know what to do with,
>say they prefer 356s to 911s. I was actually ready to sell it. The number
>of things I fixed, adjusted and changed were amazing. As far as the
>distributor went, I changed the points (to Pertronix and back) the
>condensor, the rotor, the cap, the wires, I even made darn sure those
>weights were not sticking. So, I figured if something was wrong, it was
>not the distributor. But, in trying to get the Pertronix to work right, I
>realized that there was something wrong with the distributor. I got a
>temporary replacement in there and the car came to life, it became a
>totally different animal. My distributor is now being rebuilt. The guy
>told me he found at least two things wrong so far. First, the springs have
>weakend so much that even at idle they are allowing the distributor to
>advance, so that it fully runs out of advance at 2000 rpm, while it should
>go to 33 degrees advance at about 3000 rpm. Also, there are these little
>spacers that keep the bottom part of the distributor shaft from lifting and
>pressing too hard on the top part of the shaft, and these have worn out.
>
>So, my advice is that you should regularly lube your distributor. You
>should also be sure you are getting full advance and it's not coming on too
>soon. Check your full advance at high rpm (which I did, by the way, with
>the 356 when I started and it was fine. It just must have deteriorated or
>something since the car was finally being used again after 20+ years).
>
>Good luck,
>Jay
>
>
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