[VB] Good News

[david raistrick]

> Although I don't have that felt below the rotor. Is there something else I could get to put in there, to keep the lube?

A wadded up piece of shop towel will probably do the job - stuff it
into the gab nice and dense, then soak it with oil.   or a piece of
felt (maybe fold up some of that furniture foot felt).


> Shaft wobbly - is this something that you can feel - or does it just need to be off a tiny bit. IE if I grab the distributor shaft and it doesn't seem to wobble, am I good? Or do you need a special tool to measure the wobble because it can be so small?

With the distributor installed - it's mostly visible by watching an
analog dwell meter, watching the needle bounce around.     But extreme
play can be felt (ha) while installed - easier to feel when it's out
of the car though.

> The little ground strap is no longer on my distributor - it didn't look like it was attached? I would think something like that - if it was a problem - would either work on not work. As opposed to working intermittently?

The ground strap was added because the path-to-ground through the
moving plates and the lube between them is not fabulous.   It could
very much be the source of your problem.    The end of the strap
should be welded (which is not an easy task) back to the plate.   You
can probably pull it off with a HOT soldering iron - the plate needs
to get hot enough to melt the solder before you attach it.

You might be able to pinch it under the points (or another wire if the
strap isn't long enough) - just make sure it doesnt cause the advance
mechanism to bind.       You definitely want to ground that plate -
it'll cause no end of chaotic spark problems without it.



> As for going pointless - I'd like to do that, but wanted to try to figure this out first. For a couple reasons - I don't want to start introducing variables, if the distributor is bad, I'd probably want to get a points/distributor all in one to save a few bucks.

What carb (and what distributor part number, for that matter)?  The
carb/distributor relationship is important - the idle-to-power
circuits of the carbs are really designed to match the matching
distributors advance curve, and tossing on an aftermarket svda or
mechanical advance distributor might get you going in a pinch, but can
leave you with fun tuning issues around acceleration off idle (among
other things).

What I'm trying to suggest - the pointless ignition module fixes most
of the age related wear problems on a distributor and avoids the need
to replace it with something that doesn't match... :)