[T3] Petronix ignitor?

[Jim Adney]

On 10 Nov 2010 at 11:21, Dennis Stiefel wrote:

> Got one on a bug I have run for 10 years no problems but as Daniel said
> don't know about an FI distributor.

They work great until they die, and some people seem to have bad luck with 
their dying within a year or 2. Otherwise, they are great, but many owners have 
taken to carrying a complete spare distributor in the car, just in case.

I believe the Pertronix kit for the FI distributor may be discontinued. That 
kit contained a specially modified rotor which was necessary to fit in the more 
limited space of the FI distributor.

I prefer the Delta Mark 10 CDI (Capacitive Discharge Ignition) units. They 
don't involve any additional parts inside the distributor and use the same 
points, but they do have a box that you have to install somewhere. They just 
wire into the coil wiring.

The biggest problem with points is rubbing blocks that wear quickly. This 
happens when the dist cam isn't cleaned and greased at each tuneup. The old 
grease collects grit which becomes grinding compound and roughens the cam. The 
rough cam surface then rapidly wears the rubbing block.

One of the things I do when rebuilding a distributor is polish the cam. This 
does wonderful things for point life. With a CDI ignition and a polished cam, 
the points will go 10s of thousands of miles without attention.

I have Delta Mark 10s and Mark 10Bs available for sale if you're interested, 
and a distributor rebuild only costs $50 plus shipping.

After ignoring my own distributor for over a decade, I just rebuilt it this 
past summer. I knew it needed it, but I was REALLY surprised by how much 
difference it made once the mech advance was completely free once again.
That car really came back to life after the rebuild.

-- 
Jim Adney
jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, WI USA