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It's O.K. to try all the suggested approaches. I did on my 460. Nothing worked. What finally got it was using a pair of properly sized bolts with coupling nuts on them to "press out" the distributor. If you try this be sure to keep the forces about equal so you don't break the distributor's housing. After it's out do a thorough cleaning, change the seal, and use anti-seize when replacing.
I soaked it in pb, try again in a few hours. I am going to pull the water pump, balancer and timing cover maybe today or tomorrow so worst case I shoud be able to tap from the bottom right?
I had the same problem with my truck. I already had plans on putting an HEI distributor in it so I got a little too aggressive with it and broke the top part (where it flares out) off leaving just the shaft. I had tried everything, soaking in on blaster, torching it, pouring ice cold water on it, nothing was working. I believe all these methods may have loosened the bond a little, so maybe try them too. I eventually drilled two holes in the remaining part, and put a piece of cable through the hole and tied them off so I had a big loop attached to the distributor. I then got a long board and put it through the loop and layed it on the intake manifold. This gave me leverage to pull it straight up and out. Worked for me, maybe give it a try. Also a good time to switch to an HEI distributor
I have been looking at the 'ready to run' ones. At first MSD but now I am seeing ebay ones for a 3rd the cost of msd. Anyone have experience with ebay ready to run set ups?
That's actually the one I'm running now. I believe I paid 30-40 bucks for it. Only problem with it was the gear was the wrong size but it was a fairly easy fix. Other than that, mines working well
I soaked it in pb, try again in a few hours. I am going to pull the water pump, balancer and timing cover maybe today or tomorrow so worst case I shoud be able to tap from the bottom right?
I had to soak mine for several days before it budget. I was in the same shape as you. Tried and tried to take it out, wouldn't budge. Sprayed the base with PB Blaster every day for 3 or 4 days, maybe 5. Went out after that, grabbed the top of it with my hand and it slid right out... No problem.
HOWEVER, comma, I bought an HEI for around 70 bucks off of Ebay (for a SB Mopar) and was surprised at the quality of the thing. Billet body, nice cap/coil, etc.
This is where things can get tricky: you need to know somebody who really knows these things. I was lucky... my best bud has been building and restoring GM products for 20+ years (he currently has a fetish for early 60s bubble-top Pontiacs, but that's a different subject) and he brought over his spare HEI parts box and helped me replace the cheesy Chi-com junk with quality parts. He also showed me how to remove the shaft and perma-lube it for long life and operation. In the end that thing worked great and, as an added bonus, I got to p*ss-off the Mopar purists w my blasphemy... that's always fun
As a relative Ford-noob I popped-in because I've never experienced this kind of difficulty removing a distributor (with Mopars you have to worry about dropping the drive-gear into the engine). I've only ever R-n-R'd one Ford, an old Lincoln (400M) and it was 0 trouble at all.
After all that verbiage (), can someone post some pics of this troublesome seal and where exactly the application of heat would help... ? My distributor is coming out soon for an intake swap and this is an issue that I was unaware of until just now... knowledge in the brain trumps tools in the box almost every time.
Theres only one seal, as seen in this pic, and mine came out very easiely , but I can see where one sitting tight for 40 years could be a problem, gets mighty hot right there, then throw in the occasional moisture, grime, dirt, cold, heat, repeat......
Yep, actually a very common problem on this engine family. Never had this difficulty in any other Ford oddly enough, even though the designs and materials are virtually the same. Can't remember how many times this subject came up on the old ProjectBronco.com forum. But it was quite often.
When I first tried to adjust the timing on my '79 400 it would not budge. PO had probably never tweaked with the timing in the roughly 12 years he'd owned it from (almost) new.
Took me a month of soaking, heating, tapping and twisting before it broke loose. I was very concerned I might have to bust it out of there, but it finally let go.
I've worked on plenty of engines that the distributor had been sitting untouched for longer than this one. But apparently there's just something "special" about our engines.
Perhaps less oil is flung up into the housing area from the timing chain than on other engines? Maybe more moisture leaks down past the flange into the seal area? Heck, maybe it's a poor grounding scheme and there's too much electrical bleed causing more of a reaction.
Dunno, but it happens way too often to be just a fluke.
I use anti-seize on all of them now. Even if that engine isn't known for getting stuck.
Falls under the "cheap insurance" category.
), can someone post some pics of this troublesome seal and where exactly the application of heat would help... ? My distributor is coming out soon for an intake swap and this is an issue that I was unaware of until just now... knowledge in the brain trumps tools in the box almost every time.
