Distributer Exploded, Have you seen this before? And do you have a spare? Options

[Millerwelds]

2.0 Djet. I changed out the plate due to a disconnected ground about a year ago and cleaned and lubed everything at that time. It has worked fine since then, til yesterday. Went to start the car and it did not sound right. Then no spark. Fiddled with a few things to make sure the wiring on the coil did not rattle loose etc, tried again and the distributer rotated 180 degrees and exposed this fancy new hole.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/ar15.gif)


Towed it home and dismantled the distributer this morning to find the following.




It had been wearing away for a while based on the metal shavings. The shavings are not brass / bronze from the normal wear of the rotor /cap.



Notice the wear on the FI trigger points plate too



Part numbers for reference



Here is a picture of the car for good measure. She looks real good (sitting in the garage!) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)

[green71]

My car did the same thing -- shot the piece clean through the side of the distributor housing -- but not before it stove up the distributor altogether . . . which stopped the distributor drive shaft, which is driven by a BRASS gear on the crankshaft (or camshaft, don't recall for sure). The brass gear lost the fight, and I wound up with brass chunks and shavings in my engine case and a good reason to do an engine rebuild. You should try to get a look at that gear to see if it suffered any damage; you wouldn't want that stuff sloshing around in your engine.

Mark

[Millerwelds]

My car did the same thing -- shot the piece clean through the side of the distributor housing -- but not before it stove up the distributor altogether . . . which stopped the distributor drive shaft, which is driven by a BRASS gear on the crankshaft (or camshaft, don't recall for sure). The brass gear lost the fight, and I wound up with brass chunks and shavings in my engine case and a good reason to do an engine rebuild. You should try to get a look at that gear to see if it suffered any damage; you wouldn't want that stuff sloshing around in your engine.

Mark

Mark, Thanks for bringing this point up. I had not thought that far ahead. SO this morning I pulled the gear and sure enough, more carnage.





Sleepin's offer of a replacment unit sold before I got to it so I am still looking. Does anyone have any experience with the rebuilt ones by Cardone?
Valy has one from a 73 that I am considering also.

I now also need a new drive gear. Are there any differences I need to be aware on on the drive gears throughout model years / bus cases?

The plan is to pull as much of the brass filings out the top of the hole first, then drain the oil, pull the screen and flush some kind of solvent (recomendations?) down through the distributer hole to flush any remaining pieces out. I will use a filter to catch what I can so I can hopefully see how much I am able to remove vs what came off the drive gear to compare.

Cap'n was right on as usual. In this case the hole in the weight wore through and out it went. Also, the pictures of the distributer hole were not taken by Andy, the iphone isn't so great up close.