fiber washer in distributor

1

1929tudor

Senior Member
I want to rebuild my distributor and there is a fiber washer with the kit that goes with the condenser. Does that go on the drivers side of the distrib between the lower plate arm that the condenser screws to and the distrib body maybe to prevent it from shorting out. Any picture of where the washer goes would be helpful. thanks
 
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Marco, If you swept together the several postings you have made on here about distributors, I think you would have a little best-seller on your hands!
Most of this stuff vanished with the old archives...I fortunately ran off copies and stapled them into a little manual before everything went away.
The combination of deep expertise and high quality photography is hard to beat.
I bring out those sheets for things like this, the length of the plate wire, and just plain how things should be in there.
 
Hate to reactivate this post again but have some questions about the distributor.

1. Is it very important to put in the fiber washer on the condenser as Marco shows?
2. In the set of screws I received from one of the vendors, a copper screw was included with the set. It was a little larger than most of the other screws in the set. Where does it go in the distributor?

Thanks for any help
 
Fred K-OR said:
Hate to reactivate this post again but have some questions about the distributor.

1. Is it very important to put in the fiber washer on the condenser as Marco shows?
2. In the set of screws I received from one of the vendors, a copper screw was included with the set. It was a little larger than most of the other screws in the set. Where does it go in the distributor?

Thanks for any help
Click to expand...

1. No not really but it helps preventing shorts. Why would you not want to use it?

2. To hold the fiber insulating washer
 
Thanks, Ron.

Guess I don't have a good reason for not using it. Only reason is that I put the distributor together a while back and did not use it. So back to the "drawing boards". Guess I am just a lazy old guy and this tear down would give me something to do!
 
I've seen various explanations for the "FAMED RED WASHER," like, it's an insulator, no, not really, without it, the screw threads might be too long, maybe, it was there when new, so, why not?? The dog, with his infinite wisdom, just said, "Maybe it's sort of a splash guard to keep wayward water from gettin' into the distributor & shortin' it out when it steams up inside the hot distributor body."***** Bill W.
 
Well I put the thing in today after a few new cuss words to get the #$% thing in there. Must be an easy way to do it but I have to learn the hard way.
 
Fred K-OR said:
Well I put the thing in today after a few new cuss words to get the #$% thing in there. Must be an easy way to do it but I have to learn the hard way.
Click to expand...

The way I do it is to glue the fiber washer onto the tab on the lower plate with some contact cement before installing the plate. Use a drift to make sure the holes are lined up. Install the large screw into the front of the condenser before installing the rear grounding screw. This makes it easier to line the front screw up with the condenser.

I am pretty sure the fiber washer is an insulator so that the lower plate tab is kept from grounding out on the housing. I have seen where the tab has grounded out when people install the modern upper plate where the condenser is on the top plate. The tab is left without anything anchoring it and it can easily short to the housing.

Tom Endy
 
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