1941 Ford flathead distributor
- Thread starter olguy
- Start date
SoCalCoupe
Well-known member
Been having some momentary hiccups on moderate/heavy acceleration. Seems more like ignition than carburetor. At idle sounds like I'm hearing some sparking from the distributor.
Got brave and pulled the distributor. Mechanically everything looks good and all contact points look good. It's a PITA but the points are definitely less than .012" gap. Setting them by gap also looks like a PITA.
What's the trick? Looking at the screws, where do you loosen and where do you turn to adjust? Looks like the one on the far right with the star washer loosens the points. Is the one next to it without the star washer a cam to minutely adjust the gap? What's the tall "screw" more to the left? Looks REALLY hard to do this with a screwdriver and a feeler gauge.
For the record, I loosened the screw with the star washer and the screw with the really tall head. In hind sight I could have used a screwdriver drill bit in a ratchet wrench or something else to make the angle. Yes, the 'x' head screw is a cam to change the gap. There was almost no gap at all on the right hand set of points so I set the gap to max and it was still no more than 0.012". Probably the nub on points that hits the distributor lobe is worn down. The other set was about 0.012" without adjusting it.
The sparking I heard from the distributor went away. Spark was probably 'fire' jumping the gap that was too small. Car seems to run smoother and I couldn't make it hiccup like it was doing.