At 11:51 AM -0400 8/30/1999, Rob C Swift wrote:
>Hello All,
>
> I replaced the cap, rotor button, and wires on my '75 TR6 this
>weekend.
> Afterwards my car idled noticeably better, and ran much better overall.
> After touring around most of the afternoon, (about 20 miles) I decided to
>look under the cap and found quite a bit of metallic dust. I had suspected
>that the rotor was striking the contacts with my old cap, and I am now sure
>of it.
Rob: About 20 years ago, I had a Sunbeam Alpine that kept getting metal
powder under the dist. cap.
Couldn't figure out where it came from, so I just cleaned it and kept on
driving. One day the car backfired and died. A look under the hood was a
shocker- the distibutor had sawed itself in two!
One of the weights in the vacum advance had jammed out into the side wall
of the distributor, causing the metal powder I had been seeing. Sadly, the
#2 piston had a big time argument with a valve (and lost) when the
iginition misfired whilst the dist. was self destructing.
Anyway, if the powder you're seeing is grey and all over the base plate
(under the points) you maybe facing a similar scenario. Pull the
distributor and strip it to find out. Or, just swap in another good used
one and see if the problem abates
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