33 ignition

Since the rotor and distributor cap terminals do not touch the wear on the distributor cap is from erosion from arcing, a normal process over time. When the gap between the rotor and cap terminals becomes excessive replacement is necessary.
The plug wires are not soldered into the cap. They are soldered onto end terminals which are pushed into the distributor cap. Just pull ( with some effort) the plug wires out of the distributor cap and the end terminal should come with the plug wire. I like to reuse the original cap end terminals, original Ford are numbered and stamped at the cap end.
 
Terry thanks for the clarification and info. I suspected the groove I see was from arcing wear. I suspect some of the wires may be original. It looks like they were steel core back then. Why do you prefer the original Ford terminals?

On a side note, when I removed the vacuum line from the distributor the brass end just fell off of the steel line. Is this normal? I cannot see how a vacuum seal is created with this configuration.

Thanks!
Art
 
The original wire end terminals are made of a thick metal that snaps into the cap and makes it hard to fall out. Aftermarket end terminals do work.

The brass fitting on the vacuum lines will compress on the steel line but the fitting has to be tightened into the threaded hole with some force. I use line wrenches to tighten the fittings so the wrench does not slip off the brass. Once you properly tighten you can remove the fitting and check for compression if necessary. Leave a small amount of the line sticking through the brass fitting before tightening or before compression depress the steel line all the way into the threaded hole until it stops then tighten the fitting to compress.
 
There are some spiral core wires that have low resistance and some level of noise suppression . . . from folks like MSD. But, unless you have a big need to reduce noise, just run solid-core wires and non-resister plugs. You should see on a distributor machine what happens to these ignitions when there is too much resistance in the wires/plugs . . . looks like a "spark show" inside the cap. This is a particularly big issue if you're running a Harman-Collins dual coil . . . the yellow mid-plate will throw sparks in all sorts of bad places!
 
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