Had to rebuild distributer for a 93 F-150 302 yesterday, and figured I'd pass on tips.

Skip story if you like

Story: On the way to work on Interstate lost ignition and limped to shoulder. Got a free tow from DOT to a parts place and went to work. Opened the distributer cap to find the Rotor had sheared. upon replacing I noticed there was a whole lot of torn up stuff in below and a couple of torn up wires laying beside the rotor. Turns out the piece of plastic from the rotor fell down into the base and the turning armiture the magnetic pick up and the aforementioned piece turned into about fifty pieces of distributer shrapnel. The parts place didn't have a new distributor...I highly recommend just getting a new one (98$) so I bought a new rotor (10$, new magnetic pick up 25$ and they didn't have a new armiture 8.50$). There was a brake shop next door that had extra tools (vice, and a punch) and I was able to rebuild the distributer and bend the armiture to a limp home wont do any more damage state. found a new armiture/reluctor in town and replaced. runs fine now

Lessons.

1. If you have the Magnetic pick up mangled I would suggest spending the money for the new distributor, unless you have a bench vice and punch for removing replacing roll pins handy. to replace the pick up you have to remove the distributor. remove the gear (1 roll pin) and remove the shaft retainer (my term) 1 roll pin then pull the whole shaft through the distibuter.
2. when replacing a distributor mark and make note of two things. score the base of the distributor and the enginge block so that timing remains good (I did this one)...
3. Also mark/make note of/take picture of the rotor position prior to removing the distributor (I didn't do this one). If you dont so this as i found the hard way you'll have to either find top dead center (not easy with 1 person) or try every gear tooth position until you find the right one (my method) there are somewhere between 8 to 15 teeth on the gear and you should carefully move from one to another and crank it to see if it fires (It is highly unlikely you'll get it to crank unless your in the right spot.)
4. you can bend the armiture back into approximate position if you have to (providing all the teeth are still there) with pliers and hammer (the tolerance on the pick up is fairly wide) but you dont want to unless you absolutely have to. If you try this spin it on the base to make sure it clears the pick up and wont do more damage. (this is only a limp home operation and armiture should be replaced ASAP (only $8.50)


Hope you don't have to get in the distributor but if so I hope this helps.

Cheers

 

Great work in a less than ideal situation. Glad you made it home.

Will put this in my "What to do when my truck finally lets me down folder."

Hope you can send that shop some bidnezz' for their help.

 

All the guys at work are givng me grief today for not sticking a straw in the #1 plug hole to and turning engine to find top dead center (when straw is pushed furthest out) then aligning the rotor closest to #1 point on the dist cap.
They're right and would have saved me a bunch of time in trial and error realigning the distributer. wasn't that smart though!