Since I have been seeing to my Dizzy, I noticed it has maybe a smidge of wiggle at the top of the shaft. Probably less than a mm. Is this something I should address?

 

 

I'm running electronic. So maybe it's not a big deal? If I can, Is it hard to rebuild one?

 

My dizzy was loose enough and my cam worn enough that it was hitting against the side of my Pertronix unit and broke it. I now have a new Pertronix billet distributer with the Igniter III set-up waiting to be installed.

I don't know how hard it is to rebuild...although there is a racing shop that has full machine services that I'm going to send my original to for rebuild in the event that I show the car and want to reinstall original points set-up.

 

 

The dist. shaft in my 68 360 had some slop, enough that it I couldn't get dwell within spec. I ended up putting on electronic ignition (Accel) which was a good upgrade in my opinion.

I also took the dist. apart as far as it would go without removing the shaft, which requires you to press gears on and off. Don't have the tools for that. I just cleaned all the removable parts well and used a little white lith on all rub spots when putting back together. Manual says to mark position on weights and springs when coming apart; not sure why on springs, but I did so for weights. Since I couldn't take the shaft out (and it was clearly gummed up somewhere because it would bind some when spinning by hand), I plugged the weep hole in the body and sprayed a bunch of PB blaster in the bottom and worked it down into the bushings (I think?) by spinning it a lot. Let it sit over night like this, then drained and wiped it down as best I could. Lot's of crap came up and out and the unit spun much better/freely by the time soaking was complete. Then I filled it with some oil and again spun the shaft to work it down in and let sit over night. Drained and flipped to sit and and let remaining oil come down and out, wiped it down good, then proceeded to put back together. Happy with final result, seems to have made an improvement in function despite not pulling fully apart. Note, I only took this approach since the manual says to oil the bushings before re-installing the shaft and I figured I could get oil to them by letting it perc down overnight. It's been about 50 miles since i put it back together. The only tricky part was getting the retainer off the cam lobe part so I could pull it off the shaft. After much fiddling, I was finally able to get it off with needle nose pliers and a screwdriver.

 

What you said sealed the deal. I had a couple of my Mallory units go bad. Maybe this had something to do with it. Thanks Bud. I'm going to get a new one

 

You can check the movement with a timing light. If it varies more than a couple of degrees when idling the bushings are worn out.

 

I can't do this right now but I would like to know how you check it with a timing light. I have no clue since you can't access the dizzy shaft when the engine is running. How do you check it Alex?

 

 

Ted explained it very good. I'd like a show of hands, how many people own a dwell meter? I do. So they still sell them?

 

 

Thanks Tedster and Alex. I love getting knowledge. Although I have electronic it is still good stuff to know. I used to do iot back in the late 70's- 80's. Long time ago. Ha Ha.

 

My hand is up. I bought my first one because the Mercury Comet I had bought had a dual point dist in that Boss 302. I couldn't get the points set right with just a feeler gauge.

 

The scattered timing marks is a spot on description! My distributor was so bad that the marks scattered at idle. I'm looking into rebuilding my old distributor myself...anyone know where to get replacement bushings?