I'm not much an internal engine person but I understand the workings of it.

As I was pulling out the distrubutor I found resistance. Upon looking closer it appears that the hex shaft seems to be stuck in the bottom of it. I believe it's the peice that turns the ditz coming out of the oil pump. Is that peice supposed to be able to come up that high or is there a loose part in the engine. I am able to slip a finger down into it enough to ID it. I haven't yet tried to pull it up hard to dislodge it from the bottom of the dist. I will wait for some ones opinion before I force anything.

When I push it back in it does lock back into a geard position.
I replacing it with a duraspark dist.

Any help is appreciated, Thanks!
Cliff

 

No, there is supposed to be a retainer that keeps the shaft from coming up with the distributor.

You have several problems. The shaft is stuck to your distributor. If it comes all the way out, the retainer will be laying in the oil pan. If it comes up, comes loose, and falls in, the whole shaft could be laying in the pan.

Even with a lift and all the right tools, pan R&R is a 2-3 hour job.

 

Thanks, 2+2GT

Is it something I can do by removing the oil pan if I lift the engine up without removing it from the car, or will I need to pull it completely out?

Are we talking about the oil pump shaft?

 

You can leave the engine in the car to pull the pan.

Frankly, if it were me and I pulled the dist and the oil pump shaft came with the distributor I would put the shaft in the pump without the retainer or I would glue the shaft into the distributor and put it in as a unit before I pulled the pan just for this reason.

I know it is not "right", but on my own car this is too much trouble for too little reason.

IMO pull the dizzy and if the shaft comes it comes, then deal with the consequences.

Worst case is the shaft does fall into the pan, but I am not sure the shaft will make the corner around the boss and the pump to actually fall into an inaccessible position for retrieval through the hole.

I will say that if the shaft is really stuck in the distributor then something caused this, meaning that the pump likely momentarily froze or turned hard because the pickup screen is blocked or torn and this may have caused the shaft to turn hard or actually even "wind up" like a pretzel.

So if the pump shaft is twisted or the end of the hex is rounded off it may be wise to at least take a look in the pan for pieces of timing gear etc. Even then a borescope might be useful before I pulled the pan.

 

Thanks for the response.
After doing some other research I see that replacing the oil pump shaft doesn't look that hard to do.
A question or two,
do I need to raise the engine to get the oil pan off? I know years ago with my 69 charger the engine had to be raised to get the pan off.
The motor hasn't seen any road time yet but has been idled at different RPM's to break it in. Is there anything I should do while I have the pan off fixing this problem?

 

No, all you need to do is remove the B crossmember (2 bolts) and lower the center link (usually detaching the idler from the frame is enough).

 

aye. very easy, no lifting required