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Mon Aug 25, 2008 11:38 am

Ok, got a restored '63 ragtop, auto trans (from a Fastback), 1776 cc engine, dual carbs. The distributor went while clocking in about 65mph. Coil was hot, but weas fine,. Engine cooled quicky. Dsitributor lost spark and died.

A year old distributor, and car with all new parts. What are the chances of the distributor dying? Is this a common occurance or a rare thing?

Thanx!

Mon Aug 25, 2008 11:50 am

My two 009 distributors have lasted over 30 years so far, and original condensers. What do you mean that it "died"? did rubbing block wear down (from lack of grease) and now the points won't open and spark?

Mon Aug 25, 2008 11:54 am

Unfortunately, I did not pop the distributor off, but I did remove the wire leading to the coil. No spark. Very muchr that the points will not open and spark? We tried to statr the engine and it would not turn over.

Mon Aug 25, 2008 12:49 pm

First. If you are getting no spark it is more than likely a bad ignition coil, not distributor. The second problem is that you said you removed the wire from the distributor to the coil and had no spark and could not get the engine turned over. Just so you know with how the ignition series works lets go over it. First you turn on the ignition key. When you do this it takes power from the battery to turn the starter motor to turn the flywheel on the motor. This starts the start up process of combustion. The cylinders fill up with fuel waiting for a spark from the coil to go to the distributor in which the distributor "distributes" the spark to the spark plugs in each cylinder to fire in a given order (firing order, 1-4-3-2). This will than start the motor and keep it running. If you take the wire off the top of the distributor and turn the motor over and have no spark at the end of the wire, as long as the motor is turning over, this means the coil is bad. If you can't even get the car to turn over you either have a bad starter motor, solenoid, ignition or battery. In many cases one of these thing malfunctioning will often lead to malfunctioning of all because of extra strain being put on these parts not working correctly. Last make sure you have GAS in the car.

Mon Aug 25, 2008 1:55 pm

Thanx. I had suspected it was a bad coil, as it was boiling hot a good hour after the car was off. Now, if the coil is practically new, what are the chances of it going bad? No spark?

Mon Aug 25, 2008 3:15 pm

My Dune Buggy died while driving. Found out it was caused by a wrong rotor that was to short, didn't touch the top contact. It ran great for about a year with it, (go figure).
Anyway I decided to change to an electronic distributor, set the timing but now have an ignition miss, backfires right side at idle. Sounds like a gunfire.
Question is are electronic distributors known to do that?
Should I go back to points? Or could it be something else?
Thanks for any help and suggestions.

Mon Aug 25, 2008 3:53 pm

pacobell63 wrote: Thanx. I had suspected it was a bad coil, as it was boiling hot a good hour after the car was off. Now, if the coil is practically new, what are the chances of it going bad? No spark?

is distributer condenser wire on number 1 (negative or -)??? is hot coil wire on number 15 (positive or +) ????

Mon Aug 25, 2008 4:01 pm

Red is positive, black is negitive

Mon Aug 25, 2008 4:35 pm

HandymanPM wrote: Red is positive, black is negitive

condenser wire is green and it is negative.. brown is ground for german wiring. if you have a petronix or comufire then black is negative and red is positive..

Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:33 pm

Well it's wired right.
I checked the timing again and it's right on 7.5 deg. btdc on a 1500 engine.

Tue Sep 09, 2008 7:23 pm

Distributors don't die. They are mostly mechanical and can wear out when not maintained properly and I have over 250 cores that say that almost no one maintains them properly!

If the distributor cam turns when you turn the engine over by hand then the only real fault you can find with the distributor if it was running correctly previously is the tune up parts. That would be points condenser rotor or cap. If these pass inspection and test out ok, and if you don't know how to check them for proper function well... never mind its a long story.

Coils are pretty dense objects so they can get hot and stay hot for quite awhile.

Most likely your coil or some other component.

sometimes the advance plate ground wire breaks and you have intermittent problems.

Can't help with the electronic ignition don't like them one bit. Just one more thing to overspend on and ruin an $80 investment in a flash.

Wed Sep 10, 2008 3:00 am

Well the electronic distributer is new. A new bosh blue coil. New wires. All plugs good and rechecked gaps, reset valves and I still have a miss. So can anything else cause an ignition miss?
Thanks

Wed Sep 10, 2008 3:32 am

HandymanPM wrote: Well the electronic distributer is new.... So can anything else cause an ignition miss?
Thanks
Yes... a bad electronic module.

Wed Sep 10, 2008 8:45 am

HandymanPM wrote: Well the electronic distributer is new (doesn't mean it works). A new bosh blue coil (some non-German new Bosch Blues are junk). New wires (non-Bosch are bad, what about the resistor connectors?). All plugs good and rechecked gaps, reset valves and I still have a miss. So can anything else cause an ignition miss?
Thanks

Wed Sep 10, 2008 2:47 pm

It seems like a lot of people don't like electronic distributors. Why is that?

Can a cracked or broken valve guide cause backfiring?