A friend of mine has a 93 Fleetwood Pace Arrow with a 460 in it. He went camping last weekend and it drove fine on the way there. When he went to leave on Sunday he didn't have any power. He couldn't even climb a 1% grade. Had it towed to a local garage 35 miles back to town and they are claiming that his distributor was too tight. I have never heard of a too tight distributor problem before. Has any of the experts on this board ever heard of this problem? Your help is greatly appreciated in explaining this or is he just being screwed?

Thank you.

 

It must be slang for something but I have no idea what "to tight of distributor" is. If it ran good but wouldn't pull a load I think the fuel system would also be suspect. Something plugged or a pump not working right.

 

They just faxed him a description of the problem saying that the bushings were siezing up and have to replace the distributor. Does this sound possible?

 

Most distributors do sit in bushings, at least the shaft does. So I guess it could sieze up. The few I have played with were bronze and I think splash lubed from the underside from the crankcase.

I did have an old car where the bushings got dry and a bit corroded from sitting too long so maybe this is it? I would guess a "tight" distributor might retard the timing which would cause loss of power. I would also suspect it ain't good for the drive shaft of the distributor which usually acts as the coupling to the oil pump.

Alternatively, some distributors have a small oil cup inside the top of the shaft and require a few drops of oil periodically. Come to think of it, I am not sure if my 94 460 has an oil cup, this is easy to overlook with electronic distys since they don't need much maintenance.

Just guessing,

Jim Henderson

 

sounds reall bogus to me if it ran fine goingcamping it sertinly isnt going to freeze up in a weekend besides even if it did sieze you would shear the roll pin in the gear before the engine would bog down

 

that should be injected so it would not have mechanical advance

 

Hmmm, my reply seems to have disappeared.

Perhaps the shop tried to check/adjust the timing and found that they couldn't turn the distributor body. I've seen two engines like that in wrecking yards. Even using a chisel and BFH, the dizzy body wouldn't budge.

The problem sounds to me like a plugged cat. Your buddy probably hit a pothole and a piece of the cat shifted and is now blocking the exhaust. (Been there, done that...)

 

Sounds like your friend is going to have thread marks from this one.

If a shaft sticks in the distributor body it will spin the housing way around winding up the plug wires around it. It will not be just down on power, it will not run. I have seen a Chevy do this on a race engine that was being fired for the first time. The manifold had been milled and his distributor was to long and the gear didn't have any end play so it got so hot it finally welded the shaft to the bushings and spun the distributor housing. This wouldn't be very likely to happen on a Ford especially one that has been running a while. I'm not saying it's impossible but it is very unlikely. I like the blocked exhaust theory.

 

The way it all started was about a month ago he took the motorhome out camping and when he arrived at his destination he could smell hot rubber. He investigated and didn't find anything. He's not real mechanically inclined by the way. A couple days later when he was ready to leave he started it, put it in gear and it wouldn't move. He called for a tow and when they showed up the tow truck driver found that his serpentine belt was broken because his A/C compressor had seized up. The tow truck driver hooked up to the rear of his motorhome from the rear and attempted to tow it but found that it was tracking wrong so he started the motorhome so he could line up the steering and bungi it straight. Problem is, he forgot to shut off the motorhome and took off down the highway. About ten miles down the road a car came up from behind him and started honking and flashing and pointing to the motorhome. He pulled over and found that the motorhome was still running and boiling coolant all over the place. The temp guage was pegged past H. His first mistake was you should never tow a motorhome from the rear. He was too lazy to disconnect the driveshaft. They warped a head and ended up having to replace both heads. The the distributor story kicks in. They said they never touched the distributor. It's not possible to remove the head without first removing the distributor is it? You have to remove the intake manifold to get the head off and you have to first remove the distributor to remove the intake manifold, correct?
Fortunatly the garage that screwed up the tow job paid for the all of the engine work except the A/C compressor and the serpintine belt, which came to about 1500.00 just for that. the engine work came to 5200.00.
Is it possible they did something wrong when they put everything back together?
I wouldn't take anything to this garage. I know he won't be going back there either once everything is fixed.

Thanks all.

 

Ouch! those thread marks sound worse than my $2400 water pump job on my old diesel. I am still tender about the backside from that screwing.

 

Is this the F53 chassis or something built on an E350? If the former, the distributor might have been left in place. It doesn't go through the intake. The only reason to pull the dizzy is if its body gets in the way. In a pickup, and probably also in a van, there won't be enough room to lift the intake out with the the dizzy in place. I suspect that in a motorhome there is easy access from the rear of the engine.

Hmmm, maybe when the engine overheated, the distributor got "baked" in place?

 

has your friend got his camper back in running condition yet

 

I'm not sure what chassis it is. It's a class A so the engine is accessable from the inside only. It is still in the shop. They are waiting on some part for the A/C. The last time he drove it it didn't have the the part they are waiting for but they were able to bypass it so that he could still use it. But now he refuses to take it until everything is fixed 100%. I can't really blame him.