distributor wobbly?

[NicBowman]

Hi



Just refreshing my HT, and cleaning the distributor. I have noticed that the 8 pronged thingy (sorry no technical word) appears to have some rotational slack on the main distributor shaft. The 8 thingy trips the electric thingy to spark, and should be firmly fixed to the shaft or the timing will vary. I am not confused by the vacuum advance, it vacuum advances okay and I can feel the springs allowing movement, this is purely movement between the 8 pronged thing and the shaft (the 8 pronged thing is held onto the main shaft with a circlip). Sounds dodgy to me.



Anyone seen this, know what is happening?



Ta





Nic

[Zumbruk]

Well, I can't help you with your wobbly dizzy, but you might want to read this;



http://www.breakerless.com/igntionfacts.htm#Magnet...

[NicBowman]

I have looked further, the 8 pronged bit appears to be locked to the shaft using an O ring that is compressed by the circlip and a washer. This O ring has crept, and gone triangular, latting the 8 pronged bit float around. It cant float far as it is enganged in a plastic element, but it can move quite a few degrees.



This must be pretty common? My car is 92 mind, so quite old.



Nic

[350Matt]

even when new there is quite a bit of slack in the whole mechanism, play in the drive gear, slack in the timing chain which drives the gear, and not an inconsiderable amount of slack in the dizzy advance mech.



Basically Dizzy's are cr@p go for a set of coil packs and after-market ECU and you'll never look back



Matt

[griffter]

NicBowman said:

I have looked further, the 8 pronged bit appears to be locked to the shaft using an O ring that is compressed by the circlip and a washer. This O ring has crept, and gone triangular, latting the 8 pronged bit float around. It cant float far as it is enganged in a plastic element, but it can move quite a few degrees.



This must be pretty common? My car is 92 mind, so quite old.



Nic

Doesn't sound right. Any movement between the reluctor ring (8 pronged thingy) and the dizzy shaft will alter the relative timing between the LT circuit and the HT circuit (the rotor arm and dizzy cap), possibly leading to the ignition 'firing' while the rotor arm is not pointing to a spark plug lead terminal on the distributor cap. Can you secure it with Loctite or similar?

[NicBowman]

Hi



I think the reluctor(?) is attached firmly by this compressed O ring, so new O ring would be a good idea. I will make some calls this morning to see if it can be sourced easily. I can get one for £10 from an O ring stockist (minimum order), but seems excessive for one!



Oddly I thouht the performance was sometimes better than others, perhaps this is it.



Nic