Crab-ie patties ??? Ford Distributor

Bubba, great tech article! I have a question on the wick. I have two distributors 42-48 variety and one had access to the wick and the other appears to be closed on the bottom. Were some distributors made without the wick? How were those lubricated at the top. Thanks, Ed
 

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On the HC distributor...I do not think the conversion has any implications for rebuilding the distributor body. Just do as above. Only the plate differs, as it is stripped of Ford mounting features and redrilled for the Bendix small engine points, and of course cam is cut to 4 lobes.
Advance remains the same and so does all else that needs rebuilding and lubing. Everything below the plate is Ford. Only issues that differ are finding those blasted points (there are lots of crossovers to several brands of industrial engines) and getting plastic cap parts that are usable.
The cap stuff, if junk, could be converted the way several other companies bad dual coil conversions, using a 59A cap and rotor with extra ring and tip screwed in.
 
Bubba, great tech article! I have a question on the wick. I have two distributors 42-48 variety and one had access to the wick and the other appears to be closed on the bottom. Were some distributors made without the wick? How were those lubricated at the top. Thanks, Ed

I havent seen the closed version, i will look thru my stash fo cores and see whats going on here.
Maybe Bruce has a answer??? Bruce ???
 
Bubba, any words of wisdom on rebuilding a Harman & Collins distributor? Reference my question on post #11 above in this thread from yesterday. As you say "If it Makes Spark, you do it" So I'm hoping you have some good pointers on doing an H&C. Thank you!

Like Bruce said on his post the unit is still a Ford crab with different cap,rotor and contacts.
I build quite a few dual coil units and the issue is that the contacts be sysced on a tester. Each set of contacts effects four cylinders timing. They must be synced .
Also crucial that the ignition coils be matched with the condensors,contacts and proper primary resistance to make the unit have a longer than normal usefull life.
 
Ford gives a bunch of numbers for curves with brake loaded and unloaded, but in a very confusing and perhaps confused format, and of course they are at set numbers. I too would like to see real world curves with several different vacs from zero to high!
 
I get about 24 * max mechanical at about 1800 on the only 11A I have, since I got a dist mach that works. Richard sent me a vidio of the vacuum operation with the SBC dist and it didn't work the way we thought it should. The canister doesnOT vary the timeing as the vacuum rises and falls during normal acceloration, so ALL the machancal advance is in all the time. This can cause trouble when the CR is High. Only at WOT did the timing retard.

Now the 11A might have a differant Vac retard curve.. I have one of Richards SBC timing setups for the SBC converted to Flathead, and it covers both mach and vac.. He should post a picture of it. You can set it up right on the bench, Cool He also has another trick up his sleeve that should blow your mind..
 
Guys as time allows i will set up another distributor ( i have a couple customer units for next week) and graph the curves , with and without vacuum and different levels etc.
Any thing specific you wish to see just let me know and i will run it for you.
 
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