Well, I think I found the cause of my stumble at idle...

I know I can get a distributor cap and rotor easy enough, but what can I do about the coil pickup tone ring? Can I get them somewhere without getting the whole distributor? Or should I just try to clean it up the best I can? I can't imagine the coil is getting a very good signal from that!

 

Surface rust doesn’t matter. It is only “looking” at the windows in the shutter wheel to determine when to fire. You could try to remove it to clean it up or buy a replacement wheel.

 

Pull the shutter wheel off, drop it in evaporust, clean it up & paint it or replace via junk yard. Don't know if it's available by just part.

Ignition, injection & fuel pump operation are all keyed of the signal from the PIP & all that crap does distort what the computer sees.

The PIP can only be removed by pressing gear off shaft. You can clean it with contact cleaner, stiff brush & compressed air.

This is what the pick up probably looks like:

 

Here is one. Are they the same for all V8’s?

 

5.0/5.8 would be the same, wouldn't go further than that. 70 bucks?... sheeshe.

 

Yikes! Just buy a new distributor for $70.

 

Yikes! I can get the whole distributor for that! lol. Thanks guys, I'll take it off and clean it up. I'm picking up a new cap and rotor today.

Someone mentioned painting it. That sounds good to keep it from rusting again, but would that effect the pick up? I know air gap is important, so I didn't know if the paint would interfere

 

A new/reman distributor with questionable parts may not be better than simply replacing the rotor and cap which has a lot of wear. I’m not sure I would risk trying to remove those retaining screws to clean it for almost zero gain.

 

My bet would be the distributor is frozen in the block given the external corrosion inside the distributor. A whole new can of worms to replace the entire distributor, which I would also lean towards but be prepared for a battle.

 

Very true. I really don't want to mess with installing a distributor anyway! I just replaced the cap and rotor and my stumble at idle is completely gone. I didn't realize how rough it was running. It may be placebo, but it sure seems peppier too. I'll pull the shutter wheel out and clean it up eventually. Right now, I have other issues to take care of. Thanks for the info everyone!