Hi all,

experienced this problem with a friends car (MSD ignition and distributor). Thought I'd share. whenever he set the ignition (initial) and revved a bit the initial ignition would change just like if you had moved the distributor. In his case the springs and weights in the distributor were rusty. they were hard to move. So whenever he revved the weights would just make it out to advance and the springs failed to pull it back again. so we cleaned it all up, exchanged the springs and all good again :-)

 

Mine might be due for spring replacement or at least pivot point greasing.

-Gun

 

Kalli, Thanks for sharing that. I would have scratched off the last of the hair on my head before thinking it was the springs. I think i will replace mine too.

 

I've found the MSD advance mechanism is prone to sticking like that sometimes. The posts on the underside of the rotor that line it up on the shaft can sometimes interfere with the weights. That's why I went to one of the digital advance dizzies from Crane. MSD and Mallory have them as well.

 

the culprit must have been condensation or similar ... definetly the irish climate.
- the centrifugalweights were "sticky"
- the springs completely rusted. They'd rather bend or crack than being 'elastic'
- the part on which the weights sits on that can be agitated seperately from the main shaft was sticking as well. so we dropped 3 or 4 drops of oil down there which cured that.

quite odd. we said we'll check back after 2 weeks or so if all is still good. maybe we need some gum between distributor and cap to prevent that

 

will check on that as well. just to be sure. thx