Well, a short sub-project turned into a long one... My vacuum booster diaphragm started leaking, so I replaced it. While it was off, I cleaned all the crud out of my master cylinder, lo and behold it started leaking and bypassing fluid (the crud must have been sealing it). Took it apart and there was plenty of metal-to-metal wear on the bore and the pistons, so I ordered a new master cyl from Napa. They ordered the wrong part twice, then said that the store that was supposed to have the right part couldn't find it on the shelf. I got a refund, and so I *finally* just today got a new Raybestos part from RockAuto. Slapped it in, bled about 20 oz of fresh fluid thru the system until clear fluid came out of each bleeder, and I'm good to go. It stops really well now, I didn't know what I was missing before.

So I say all that to say that Saturday I will finally be able to start diagnosing my distributor. During my cursory investigation I didn't see any obviously broken springs, but the flyweights were pretty rusty. I will update as I find out more. I did buy a set of brass feeler gauges; do I use the .006 or the .008 to measure the gap?

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- Dan in Simi
'74 Dodge Dart Custom

Use the 0.008" when you're ready to put everything back together.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I took the distributor apart, and everything looked ok. No broken springs or obvious problems. There was some pretty substantial wear on the nylon drive gear. I ended up buying a "rebuilt" distributor (many of the parts on it were in worse shape than my old one) and using a few parts from it to rebuild my old one.

Put it back together, and the timing is rock solid. I have more power, and detonation has been reduced.

The tag number is 3755470 with "33 3" in smaller numbers above that.

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- Dan in Simi
'74 Dodge Dart Custom

Did you take the governor off the remanf distributor by any chance?

If so did it have a stamp on it? If it's better than 15 (like 11 or 9) then swapping tht guy in can net a little more power if installed and timed correctly too...

-D.Idiot

(not all parts on the 'new' remanf distributor are in good shape, I notice the after market reluctors in these are fairly out of 'spec' some times compared to the original mopar reluctors...)

First thing to check is the mechanical condition of the distributor- are the springs connected, in good shape, and does the mechanical mechanism move smoothly? Is the vacuum pot properly hooked up to the breaker plate, and does its spring firmly retract the breaker plate to the minimum advance positioin? If not, you might be lucky and all you need is a distributor rebuild.

But most likely its a sloppy timing chain.

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