043 905 205 Distributor

[brownrj]

I've searched for this info, but can't seem to find it.
I'm trying to resolve timing issue, I don't think the advance is working as it should. The plate will barely move with vacuum. You can hardly see any shift in the plate. Vacuum canister seems to be ok. So now I think disassembly and cleaning of the plate is in order to insure it's not sticking with gunk. Before I get myself to screwing it up, is there a trick to removing the plate. I can't seem to find anything on it.
BTW, this is for an all original 73 Beetle, never touched until now..
_________________
Ron
VW owner since 68
64' 72' & a 73 bought new, and still in garage

[APPLEGREENVW]

The info you need is in the Bentley manual.
_________________
Parts for sale https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/search.php?username=APPLEGREENVW

02/76 Beetle sedan

[glutamodo]

So it's running with a German 34PICT-3 carburetor with a base flange number VW 410-1?

[brownrj]

I have been looking in the Bentley. Just don't see details of further disassembly.i can see dirt and rusty looking paste under the advance mechanism.
_________________
Ron
VW owner since 68
64' 72' & a 73 bought new, and still in garage

[brownrj]

34 pict3, don't know about flange no.
_________________
Ron
VW owner since 68
64' 72' & a 73 bought new, and still in garage

[APPLEGREENVW]

The blue bentley book has a diagram of a distributor.
_________________
Parts for sale https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/search.php?username=APPLEGREENVW

02/76 Beetle sedan

[APPLEGREENVW]

[kreemoweet]

The vacuum advance specs for your dist. are at p.54, Engine chapter, of your Bentley manual. Distributor timing specs are
sometimes given in distributor degrees and sometimes in crankshaft degrees, and it's not always easy to tell which is which.
Assuming the spec in question (8-12 degrees advance) means dist. degrees, and since the diaphragm arm attachment is
at about 20 mm from the center, that would give a maximum linear movement of about 3.4 mm. If the Bentley specs are in
crankshaft degrees, the movement would be half of that. So, you should not be expecting to see much movement when you
suck on the diaphragm. In order to take the vac. advance plate off, you first have to remove the main plate by removing all
attachment screws and rotating the plate so the 3 "dents" in the dist. body line up with notches in the plate, and then
lift the plate out. Remove the detent spring and ball bearing. Turn the vac. plate so it clears the keeper tab on the main plate
and lift up. Be careful of the bonding wire, it's sometimes very fragile.
_________________
'67 bug: seized by the authorities
'68 bug: seized by the authorities
'71 kombi: not yet seized by the authorities

Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

[jlex]

You need to drive the pin out of the drive dog at the bottom of the distributor. If it's like my 205T, it's pretty easy to get apart once that damn pin is removed. Hopefully, you have a good vise. Don't break the fiber washers upon disassembly. I'm not sure if the 205 is the same as the 205T though; mine is a SASV... single advance, single vacuum model. If yours is different, then forget what I've said... yours may be constructed differently.
_________________
jlex.
'70 std. "Elsie"
'88 Carrera

[Glenn]

[jlex]

Glenn: wish I knew that about 3 years ago when I re-did mine. Those little guys are hard to find.
To the original poster: when I was in a jam in -30 degree weather, I was able to get things loosened up by using a bit of carb cleaner on the mechanism. Tore it apart later & cleaned & lubed it properly.
_________________
jlex.
'70 std. "Elsie"
'88 Carrera

[glutamodo]

If it's just the vacuum advance plate he wants to unstick, he may not have to delve any deeper than just removing the breaker plate.

However that breaker plate is not really designed to be removed, not on German 043905205s... upon assembly, the body of the distributor was peened in three places to hold the breaker plate in place. Often times, once you remove the two screws, you'll find the breaker plate won't even budge. You might be temped to use a screwdriver to pry the plate up via the opening for the vacuum advance, but if it's tight as they often are, you'll just end up bending the breaker plate.

I put a vice grip on a 90 degree pick tool and wedge that in under the plate around the edge, hold it upside down and tap the vice grip with a hammer to pop the breaker plate out. Getting it back in past those three peenings can also be "fun" without resorting to enough force to bend the breaker plate.

However you may be able to unstick the plate without removing it simply by spraying carb/choke cleaner and working the plate back and forth, followed by a light amount of quality spray lubricant.

-Andy

[tasb]

Add to the above on the points plate movement the fact that most of the advance on that distributor is taken up by the weights since this is a SVDA distributor. The vacuum canister on that particular distributor only delivers 8-12 degrees of advance.

The plate does need to be cleaned and re-lubricated after 41 years of service. Andy has a very good point. I frequently get requests to restore this distributor and I will not work on them anymore not even the German ones. My recommendation is to run a DVDA. The earlier ones are a better quality and more friendly to the rebuilding process. some people don't care for them because of the bulkier looking vacuum canister. It's actually getting hard to find a good vacuum advance distributor for the 34 PICT 3 carburetor.
_________________
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]

In order to remove the points plate on that distributor you will need to remove the cap clips and vacuum canister.
_________________
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]

Careful removing it, because if you bend it, it will never slide again.
_________________
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

#BlueSquare

[glutamodo]

Okay, I took one apart this afternoon, to remind myself how difficult these later SVDAs are. (They suck, the last one I did, a 1968 Autostick 113905205P, was much nicer, as it was designed to be able to be dismantled, unlike this bugger!)

You have to take the condenser off as well, and you might as well just take the points off too.

I didn't take tons of photos but here are some:


These are the peen/stamping that make this such a hard breaker plate to remove.

And this is how I removed the breaker plate - with a hammer, needle nose vice grips and a 90 degree pick tool:

And this is what those peenings look like on the inside:

Okay, here's the removed breaker plate. You need to gently lift the spring-steel metal retainer part of the breaker plate stabilizer, to allow you to remove the ball bearing. It should go without saying to be careful not to lose it. Once the ball is out, the retainer spring may or may not want to fall out. Then... you'll want to rotate the breaker plate around so the retaining lug opposite the ball bearing is in line with the notch on the upper plate, then you can separate the two halves:

And here they are apart. I don't think this one was ever been this far apart before. Note that there really isn't much lubrication. I just polished it up good with steel wool after I took this photo. Then a small amount of moly wheel bearing grease (I have Bosch grease but my own personal preference here is moly) Note that there is a hole in the upper plate that I think might be a place to oil the plate - I noted that in the image above.

Then put the two halves back together, and carefully lift the breaker plate stabilizer retainer spring thingy just enough to work the steel ball back in place. Confirm the breaker plate rotates smoothly, there will be some resistance from the stabilizer.

Now, I didn't take a photo of what I did next - I used a drum sander on a Dremel tool to get rid of the upper peen/stampings in the housing, leaving the bottom ones, to allow me to get that bugger back down ( it really did not want to go before I did that)

And this is after I had it all back together again:

And, while I was there with the camera, thought I would show where the date code was located on mine:

-Andy

[APPLEGREENVW]

Great write up on the later SVDA's distributors, Andy. This should be added to the sticky's.
_________________
Parts for sale https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/search.php?username=APPLEGREENVW

02/76 Beetle sedan