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Sun May 11, 2008 3:27 pm

im in process of removing my hall sender, and im stumped as to how to get the vacuum advance push-rod off of the under side of the sending unit. thats the only thing holding it in. the snap rings are off, as well as the screws holding it in place. so far ive been able to do this with the distributor still installed in the car, i have everything marked for positioning if i do need to remove it, but i dont have a wrench that can fit, and still have room to turn on the hold down bracket.

BTW, its a 1987 cabriolet 8-valve.

also, im assuming i should locktite the screws when i install the new one? if thats an error as well, please let me know.

thanks in advance

-dreamer.

Tue May 13, 2008 9:35 am

Your going to need to remove the distributor. Line up all the timing marks, and loosen and remove the distributor clamp with a 13mm wrench. Pull the distributor up and out, may take a little rocking, but it will come. I have never pulled apart a vacuum advance, but you will need to remove the sensor wheel to get the sending unit out. Set the distributor in a vise so that the gear is clear and it's resting on the lips of the vise on the block flange, if that makes sense. Mark the position of the rotor relative to the shaft, or your going to have to do some timing tweaking once you are done. Tap with a hammer on the top of the distributor, the part that the rotor attaches to, and it will fall out the bottom. Remove screws holding sender, and and replace.

To put it back together, insert the distributor shaft into the body, and place the sensor wheel back on the top. Use a deep socket slighlty larger than the shaft, and tap the wheel back on. Carefully, you don't want to bend the wheel.

If the shaft got mushroomed from hammering it out, grind the lip off of it, or the rotor won't fit back on.

BEFORE you go through all of that, are you SURE it's the hall sender? Have you eliminated everything else? What are the symptoms? I have only had one bad hall sender, and it was on my racecar. Would stall on a hard launch and wouldn't start for a few minutes, only to randomly die again.

Wed May 14, 2008 11:20 pm

it did exactly that for a bit, then later wouldnt even start. i was trying to follow a book, but found out they were worthless. it never said anything about removing the vacuum advance to get the pushrod off. but its all squared away now. though my battery is now ruined from a friend hooking up my battery charger backwards ( i went inside to wash up) luckily everything was truned off, but it was installed in the car at the time.

thank god it didnt explode or anything of the sort.

so tomorrow i get to go get a new one...