Distributor shafts - one piece or two piece?

M

mcgarrett

Well-known member
I would appreciate some education on distributor shafts. Any preferences one way or the other? Advantages of one over the other? Personally I like the one piece shaft.
 
All mine are two piece. The one piece shaft causes premature wear of the bushings since it is completely rigid. The two piece shaft permits a slight amount of misalignment caused by poor concentricity of the mounting hole in the head. Sort of acts as universal joint.But they both do work.
 

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Every one piece shaft that I have seen, is bent, and we replaced them with two piece shafts.

This alone solved a lot of engine noise on those engines.
 
I did notice a lot of wear around the extra one-piece shafts I have in my parts stash. Think I'll change to a two-piece shaft in my Roadster. Thanks for the helpful replies!
 
The January 1928 Parts Price List shows a 2-piece shaft, so I doubt that the one-piece shaft is an authentic Model "A" design. The original parts are A-12178 Distributor Cam Shaft & A-12249 Distributor Coupling Shaft. The same part numbers are in the July 1 1931 Parts Price List. The December 1932 Parts Price List has the A-12178 Shaft listed for 1928- 1931, and a B-12249 (was A-12249) for 1928 - 1932. The B-12249 is the only shaft listed for 1932. Could it be that the B-12249 Shaft is the 1-piece shaft?
I have always used the 2-piece shafts.
 
A rigid, one piece shaft with non aligned bushings will cause interference. With two pieces, the extra joint allows for a slight amount of forgiveness.
 
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