Rare Unique and Oddball stock ignition distributors

[MODIFIER]

Is this a rare one?
If I recall correctly it's from a type 4 one year only.it spent several years in my sons bug working flawlessly.

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Happyasshell
USC USMC DAD OORAH!
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62 Beetle
63 Vert
64 Beetle
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[tasb]

While not rare that one is for several reasons an oddball and unique. It was installed on 1964 1500 S Type III's. Mid 1964 was a time when Bosch was going through some transitions. It was around that time that they left cast iron production behind and began aluminum bodied manufacturing. This distributor is an example of the last of the cast iron distributors to be installed at the VW factories. Around the same time Bosch changed their part numbering system. Your distributor is an oddball because while being cast iron older production it has the newer part numbering system on the badge. It is likely an aftermarket distributor. The mechanical advance side of the distributor would perform ok in a Beetle but the vacuum canister would only work as designed on the carburetor designed for the 1964 1500 S model. Due to the shape of the vacuum canister it is frequently mistaken as a 36 hp Beetle distributor. The typical badge for this distributor is ZV/JCU 4 R 3. Type IV production was too late for this distributor to have been a stock item.
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Roads Scholar &
1957 Kombi low mileage 36 hp governor equipped M 178 Slow Drag Winner 2014, 2015, 2018

1965 hardtop Deluxe Microbus owned since 1990 M 620 factory 12 v 1500cc

1961 (October)Single Cab- Road Trip Workhorse

[tasb]

Shall we venture into the type IV world? Here is a true oddball. It was manufactured in April 1971. Yet, it is a cast iron distributor. Bosch was manufacturing cast iron replacements at this time like the 01 0 and 019. Neither Andy (Glutamodo) nor I have any documentation for this distributor. It's a Bosch: 0 231 040 394 VW# 021 905 205 D. The 021 and 022 designate the distributor as type IV.

The badge is reminiscent of some of the very early Brazilian made cast iron distributors pre- Resolit. The bottom of the housing has very large prominent BOSCH and GERMANY stamps.

The condenser and points are similar to distributors of the 1970's era but look odd installed on a cast iron distributor. The points plate was used on the 050 aluminum distributor.

There are no ozone vents on this distributor. There are two small non threaded holes that must serve this purpose but why this approach in lieu of the usual vents?

Another interesting little mystery is with the rotor. There is no notch for mounting a rotor. Instead there is a hole near the top of the shaft for mounting ?

Was there ever a type IV industrial engine?
_________________
Roads Scholar &
1957 Kombi low mileage 36 hp governor equipped M 178 Slow Drag Winner 2014, 2015, 2018

1965 hardtop Deluxe Microbus owned since 1990 M 620 factory 12 v 1500cc

1961 (October)Single Cab- Road Trip Workhorse

[Glenn]

^^^^^
Is for a NSU 1600TT with a inline 4 rear engine. VW owned NSU, it was never used in a VW engine.

I've rebuild 2 of them.

_________________
Glenn
74 Beetle Specs | 74 Beetle Restoration | 2180cc Engine
"You may not get what you pay for, but you always pay for what you get"

Member #1009

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[busdaddy]

[mr. lang]

[tasb]

Mr. Lang,

It looked like a Bosch logo but under magnification it is either a 0 or a home made "B".

Appears to be a JFR 4 but not 100% certain since the bottom of the J runs into the silver edge of the badge.
_________________
Roads Scholar &
1957 Kombi low mileage 36 hp governor equipped M 178 Slow Drag Winner 2014, 2015, 2018

1965 hardtop Deluxe Microbus owned since 1990 M 620 factory 12 v 1500cc

1961 (October)Single Cab- Road Trip Workhorse

[tasb]

The above distributor has a full 30 degrees of advance all in at 2800 rpm.
_________________
Roads Scholar &
1957 Kombi low mileage 36 hp governor equipped M 178 Slow Drag Winner 2014, 2015, 2018

1965 hardtop Deluxe Microbus owned since 1990 M 620 factory 12 v 1500cc

1961 (October)Single Cab- Road Trip Workhorse

[lightice]

[tasb]

[tasb]

[mr. lang]

could be B231040394 then

the search in the bosch archive for B231040394 did tell me, that this could be a racing part and did direct me to the bosch motorsports web side ( http://www.bosch-motorsport.com ), but my search there resulted in no results.

the search on google did show up a few ebay links and comments about Formula Super Vee and did show other B231040394 / 021905205D units.

I checked out wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_Super_Vee ) and found this:

[glutamodo]

a few various odd comments about this latest oddball:

Ugh, when tasb asked me about this, my first thought was, in fact, "Industrial" but didn't even consider racing/Vee - the irony is, I have a different version of that same parts list saved on my computer so I could have at least found that reference had I only thought to look there.

I found it kind of odd that this distributor suffix letter was skipped in the Type 4 parts book.

When Tim first asked me, he had yet to discover the locating hole for the rotor, and at that point he thought the rotor had no way to index, which seemed bizarre to me. But then the hole was discovered, but still seems to me an odd way of indexing. Then Glenn mentioned 1600 NSU, which were only listed as 1200s and smaller in my books, but the 1971 was shown using the aforementioned 0 231 129 029 distributor, and I did try to find an image of the rotor used on it. I have some Bosch parts books that include photos of various parts but this rotor is only shown from above in them, so no help there. I found some images online that showed it from the side and bottom, but whatever keys into the hole in the center shaft is not easily seen. https://www.oldtimer-yemodia.de/divers/9042-Rotor-Verteilerfinger-Bosch-Nr-1234332086.html
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Andy T.


IMAGE NOTE: It has been noted that Chrome based browsers may have issues in displaying my vast image library, which use non-secure links and are on an FTP server. Images should still be viewable if the link is clicked though.
I do not know how to fix this. All I can say is it all works fine for me with what I use, Firefox.

[tasb]

So looks like the possible applications for this distributor are type IV for racing purposes or stock for NSU 1200TT. Here is the curve data:

RPM degrees advance at crank
800 0
1000 5
1200 4 (problem here!)
1400 6
1600 9
1800 13
2000 16
2200 20
2400 24
2600 28
2800 30
3000 30

I need to disassemble due to the low rpm advance issue. I'll have a look at the weights and see how they compare to an 010, 019 (129) weights assembly. with a full 30 degrees of advance I'd expect the weights or springs to be different.
_________________
Roads Scholar &
1957 Kombi low mileage 36 hp governor equipped M 178 Slow Drag Winner 2014, 2015, 2018

1965 hardtop Deluxe Microbus owned since 1990 M 620 factory 12 v 1500cc

1961 (October)Single Cab- Road Trip Workhorse

[tasb]

Well, the advance assembly does look familiar (129) The weights are a single layer and symmetrical similar to Porsche distributors. The 010 has one weight that is single and another that is two layers while the 019 has asymetrical weights. The weights number is 000. The points cam is # 550 and the springs are the same as those used with the 010. The points cam, shaft is the newer design (thankfully) that uses a screw instead of that pesky spring clip.

After disassembly I can confirm without any doubt that this distributor is NOS. After cleaning and relubrication, running on the Sun Machine the advance wobble at 1000rpm has been resolved. It now holds steady at 4 degrees of advance from 1000-1200 rpm and the total advance is now 26 degrees leaving some room for BTDC static timing. The condenser is date stamped 133 which is first quarter of 1971 for an April of 1971 distributor. Note how thin the original paint is. Those of us who restore these overdo it to keep y'all happy.
_________________
Roads Scholar &
1957 Kombi low mileage 36 hp governor equipped M 178 Slow Drag Winner 2014, 2015, 2018

1965 hardtop Deluxe Microbus owned since 1990 M 620 factory 12 v 1500cc

1961 (October)Single Cab- Road Trip Workhorse

[tasb]

Thanks goes out to Wildthings, lightice , Glenn, Mr. Lang and Glutamodo for their experience and research, this was an interesting contribution.

I have another one coming soon.
_________________
Roads Scholar &
1957 Kombi low mileage 36 hp governor equipped M 178 Slow Drag Winner 2014, 2015, 2018

1965 hardtop Deluxe Microbus owned since 1990 M 620 factory 12 v 1500cc

1961 (October)Single Cab- Road Trip Workhorse

[tasb]

This distributor model has been featured before in this topic but this particular one has something added to it that makes it unique. These used to be known as the "VW distributor" on account of the VW logo being found all over it. If you come across a low mileage unit even the tune up parts have VW logo's on them. They are commonly called out by an early bus distributor with the VW# 211 905 205 271 (A or B).

That's not the distributor number it's the number of the actual vacuum canister that the number appears on. It's also been called a 211 905 247 as that's what's on the drive dog but, again that's the number for the drive dog not the distributor.

The distributor is identified correctly by a sticker that the maker Garbe Lahmeyer GmBh applied to the housing. The sticker in most cases was either worn or fell off of the distributor. some common ones are 113 905 205 B,L,J and much rarer 211 905 205 B.

What sets this one off is the stamping on the bottom side of the housing. The early ones had a 3 digit date stamp on them but, these later vaccum advance GL's have never had a date stamp that I'd noticed after handling maybe 75 of these. This one has a stamping:

It's VU 405-20-0. V= verteiler = distributor U= unterdruck = vacuum. If its a date code next it would be 4th day of fifth month or 4 May since in Europe they use the system day/month/year as opposed to our month/day/year system. What then do the 20-0 represent? If we drop the day leaving month and year it would be April and the year 05 which means? It might not be a date stamp at all, the answer may be lost to time. It's been suggested that at least in the early stages of production that these were intended for German domestic vehicles only. In the 1960's lot's of them made it to the states.
_________________
Roads Scholar &
1957 Kombi low mileage 36 hp governor equipped M 178 Slow Drag Winner 2014, 2015, 2018

1965 hardtop Deluxe Microbus owned since 1990 M 620 factory 12 v 1500cc

1961 (October)Single Cab- Road Trip Workhorse

[klubbs]

I have a nos 36hp industrial engine with a waterproof distributor and coil

Zv/Jam 4r9 Distributor

Is the curve on this one any Good for driving on the street?

[tasb]

Somewhere in the topic I have one of those featured. I will have to pull it out and run it on the Sun Machine. Not sure what the curve is but it can't be any worse than the 0 231 178 009

Don't forget the coil has extra shielding too.

I seem to recall that there was some suggestions that these may have been run on military issued cars which suggests that they could have an acceptable curve for the street.
_________________
Roads Scholar &
1957 Kombi low mileage 36 hp governor equipped M 178 Slow Drag Winner 2014, 2015, 2018

1965 hardtop Deluxe Microbus owned since 1990 M 620 factory 12 v 1500cc

1961 (October)Single Cab- Road Trip Workhorse

[DONGKG]