1973 302 Distributor question possible problem

jkeesey

jkeesey

Well-known member
Alright guys 1973 is a little out of my normal expertise zone so bear with me. Im going over this little car (Maverick) to give it a tune up and carb clean and found the upper distributor plate seems to move a lot. By a lot I mean I can push it side to side and it seems in my mind like that would effect the point gap. Are they supposed to move that much? I can see why it would move in order for the vacuum advance to work but this seems excessive.
 
1973 should be electronic, so that there are no points, but it can affect the timing. It should not have lateral play and should not have easy rotational movement. Seems you are due for a repair or rebuilt replacement.
 
It should not move side to side at all. If you see where the advance can hooks up, look opposite for the pivot point. It should move on that pivot when the advance can move it under vacuum. It may work better with a good cleaning and some light grease on the plastic buttons and the pivot points.
 
Hi, I have found on the ford dust. The pin under the plate or spring has broke !! I had a machinist make a new one and drill and tap the pin thread lock in a screw and good to go!!
 
oj said:
Can you expand on that? how a distributor itself is retarded?
Click to expand...

I can understand how a distributor can be installed or adjusted to retard the timing, but am also confused on what was said and how it relates to the original problem.
 
jkeesey said:
Alright guys 1973 is a little out of my normal expertise zone so bear with me. Im going over this little car (Maverick) to give it a tune up and carb clean and found the upper distributor plate seems to move a lot. By a lot I mean I can push it side to side and it seems in my mind like that would effect the point gap. Are they supposed to move that much? I can see why it would move in order for the vacuum advance to work but this seems excessive.
Click to expand...

Some pretty unique answers for sure.

Its very common for the point plate ( breaker plate) to wear at the vacuum advance arm and allow sloppy advance from the vac unit.
The fix is pretty easy as napa sells both the vacuum unit and the new breaker plate for these distributors.
If ya cant get it pm me and i can get you the part numbers from napa.
Or you could send it in for a rebuild and tune up if ya wish...
 
I've replaced 100's of breaker plates in Fords back in the 70's. The pivot on the plate used to break all the time. If I recall correctly there was even a service program or even a recall on them. If the plate wasn't broken at the pivot you put this goofy clip on it. You could break the pivot by just pushing down too hard to remove the points.
 
oj said:
Can you expand on that? how a distributor itself is retarded?
Click to expand...
The ignition curve is controlled by the use of springs and weights within the distributor as the Muscle Car era met it's end we saw the dawn of unleaded gas,lower compression ratios and and retarded timing to reduce emissions,retarding lowers performance and NOX emissions as explained here: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/ignition-system1.htm If you want to retain the stock look distributor and get the performance back then Bubba's the man you should contact.
 
While not completely stock appearing under the hood, I have used the Durasparkll distributor with the higher energy efi coil and a GM module (hid in a heat sink somewhere) for a very snappy ignition. With a little scrounging, you can do it near free. That's my alternative to looking at a fugly GM HEI on a Ford.
 
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