I have a problem with the vacuum advance pods on my distributor. I was recently offered good rebate on Aspen parts, and I bought an assortment of distributor vacuum pods. The problem is that every single one - and also some old ones that I found - have an arm that is so long, that the plate with the pickup coil is dragging on the governor shaft.



I have used old base plates and new ones, old pickup coil plates and new ones, and the problem is there no matter what I do.



The material in the arm is very stiff, it is probably hardened from the bending process and seem very difficult to bend without damage.

Is this a known problem, and what is the easiest way to deal with it?

Olaf.

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Aspenized

Are you sure you are getting the correct VP for your electronic distributor?
There is another style SL6 VP, used with the points type distributor, those have a straighter (longer) arm.
DD

Olaf,
Look at the plate mine have 2 holes one inboard of the pickup coil one outboard.

Richard

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Part of Tyrde-Browne Racing

X2.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Doc, yes, they should be correct. I got them from RockAuto, and they are all listed in the parts catalog. The ones I have in front of me are Standard VC-184, KEM VC-227 and VC-233, and Borg-Warner V-410, the old ones are unknown, and I have a couple more elsewhere. I have checked them all, they all have the same length. The anchor point in the coil plate, used for all of them, is visible in the lower photo, between the 'tooth' on the magnetic pickup coil and the governor shaft. The coil plate in the picture is a new one, acting exactly like the old one, and also have the numbers for a SL6 distributor. The distributor is the #3874876, stock '77 Aspen Super Six. BTW, using the vacuum pump, the pods were tested several times, and always got back to the same starting point.

Fopar, I also have a hole either side of the coil, but the outer one is not possible to use in any case, the length and angle is way off. There is only one hole on the inside. The arms are clearly 'almost' the correct length for the inner one.

I have managed to bend - with great difficulty, I may add - one arm enough to make the coil plate clear the governor shaft, and everything seem to move freely. Nevertheless, something is clearly not right. Unfortunately, I threw away the old original pod, as it was leaking, but I checked at least one of the new ones to see if it was the same as the old one, and there was no apparant differences.

Olaf.

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Aspenized

The new mass produced pods you have, sometimes aren't made with the best tolerances...The next best bet is to pull the pod...pull the indexing pin from the distributor body (or drill the hole in the pod body bigger), and reindex the pod so the plate is no longer contacting the governor...

The only other 2 scenarios I've seen cause this:

1) Governor Center hole is drilled a bit off at the factory (seen that a couple of times).

2) Some meat fisted remanufacturer or previous owner has bent the plate that the weights attach to, or the shaft spindle that the governor attaches to...it doesn't take much. When I recurve one, before checking bushing and shaft tolerances I chuck the shaft up into a drill and spin it and look for any "wobble"...if there is, it becomes a candidate for a core for cardone...and I get another one from my core pile....

-D.Idiot

dab this on and let it eat...
http://cgi.ebay.com/Never-Seez-NGBT16-N ... 41585d2b86

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slant six's RULE!
http://www.usajon.com

I have had everything apart, measured and cleaned, no damages, all clearances are well within factory specs. I also got an extra new setup of plates, plus I have some for a V8 distributor (same parts, same sizes). If I could pinpoint it to one set of parts, OK, then we have a faulty set. Trouble is, they are all just fitting perfectly, they just don't fit!! If you take a look at the lower photo, you can see that the arm from the pod is stretching in nice and parallel to the lower plate, everything falls nice into place, it looks absolutely perfect, except the %&¤#% arm is too long! :shrug:

USAJon, very tempting!

Olaf.

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Aspenized