[T3] Distributer placement/Timing

[Jim Adney]

On 14 Jan 2014 at 21:51, rheorojo at F wrote:

> Long day yesterday. I looked at both distributers. The one rebuilt by
> you, Jim, is polished similar to a cam or crank. The other is polished
> on the leading side but has some (minor) grooving on the trailing
> side. I have the pertronix ignition in now and I'll swap them
> tomorrow, and lube the rubbing block. I have some silicone grease, so
> I'll put a dab of that on there unless otherwise advised.

I wouldn't recommend silicone grease here, but it might be okay. In 
general, silicones don't make good metal to metal lubricants, but 
they are very good for metal to plastic and metal to rubber, as well 
as all the combinations of plastic and rubber. In this case you are 
lubricating metal to plastic, but I'd be concerned that the silicone 
grease would migrate down into the mechanical parts where there is 
metal-metal contact where it wouldn't be good.

Bosch sells small tubes of grease for this. It's rather expensive, 
but a tube will last multiple lifetimes. The main thing, however, is 
to not let them run dry and to carefully clean all the old grease off 
(because it probably has grit embedded in it) before you add fresh 
grease.

Make sure your points aren't slipping and that the point attaching 
screw isn't stripped.

I've had a few experiences where something was going on like this but 
I could never figure out exactly what was going on, or why.

> The distributor clamp I can repair and keep it with the spare
> distributor. I'll keep you posted. The car would run well (save for
> poor mileage) for a short while then bog down with little or no power.
> A retime would cure that but briefly. 

Make sure you use a dwell meter rather than just a feeler gauge. The 
dwell meter gives you a more accurate measure that's taken under 
operating conditions. Dwell meters are getting hard to find, but 
there are always a few cheap ones on ebay.

Set the dwell first, then do the timing.



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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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