My neighbor has a 67 with a 289, non HP from what I can tell. Running the old 2b carb, points dizzy, etc...

We know he's having carb issues, because as it runs you can smell what smells of old, putrid gasoline. This is issue #1. A rebuild kit/numerous float adjustments havn't settled this. Anyone that has smelt year old gasoline knows this smell quite well.

Timing adjusted to 10* BTDC last night is seemingly what caused the following problem.

Last night, he went out for a ride, car died, towed home, etc.. Today we pop the dizzy cap and find the center piece in the cap that is supposed to be connecting with the rotor has melted itself flat. The points are black. Car will not start.
A quick fix of a new cap/clean points will be started here in a couple hours, but we need to get to the bottom of this issue. Any ideas?
My only real experience with points is that of lawnmowers, and from what I've seen, it's the exact same setup.

So if someone could tell me what the correct gap is for the points, also which cyl needs to be TDC, maybe I'll slap a new set of points in there.

 

changing the points is quite easy. what worries me more is what caused the fire. I can't think of any way that tey will catch fire or cause fire in the distributor. Unless (you say it smells of petrol) you got some petrol in there. This combination of course highly dangerous
before I'd touch the ignition system I'd make sure the carb and fuel system is in good order as otherwise you'll have another fire soon

 

I didn't say anything about a fire...

 

Just found that we're receiving 12v at the coil +. From what I've read here, I should have 8v with this ignition setup.

Where do we go from here? Maybe I'm testing incorrectly?

 

rotor melted itself flat, contact breaker black..,. that's not normal wear and tear

 

thanks for that completely useless post. Just FYI, the rotor is fine. The contact in the cap for the rotor is what melted, and the points are black as the night sky.
This car has maybe 500 miles on it from a fresh 3year frame up resto.

New cap installed, it now fires up but stumbles over itself. Revving it either gets a minor RPM climb, or suffocates it, depending on its mood. This is still showing me carb issues, but we won't be able to get into that for a few days, at least.

on another note. i've read up on proper testing procedures for coil voltage testing. we have 12v KOEO, 9.4ish KOER, although this reading can't be trusted too well because the engine, at this point, barely stays running. This is a tad high to me. Maybe a secondary resistor installation is needed, instead of replacing the 61.5" wire completely.

Also, I'm convincing him to go with the Ignitor system. It is my understanding that this system uses the stock voltage at the coil, and no wiring changes are needed to the resistor wire.