Cracked distributor

restart

restart

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It seems I have to repair my distributor. How it broke is a mystery.
Clean break all the way around. You can see the advance parts through the crack in the body!

Thoughts on how this happened appreciated.

IIRC That particular distributor had a ~10 yearly crane electronic system.
if someone has a used 002 style distributor body to part I could put my parts back in.

Shipping to R3L2W2 BC Canada
Thanks
 

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Wow - that is an odd failure - I have seen a few of these on ebay - I bought a spare years ago just to make sure i never needed it!
 
That doesn't look like a crack to me - nothing fractures that cleanly. It looks like the distributor body was manufactured with two parts that were screwed/riveted/welded together. And for some reason those screws/rivets/welds have now failed.

Some inspection may indicate that it can be repaired. Or, if it can't be repaired, may shed some light on what caused the failure.
 
I may have one from my 2002. I'm out of town until Saturday. Send me a pm over the weekend if you still need it.
 
The weights have cut the body of the distributor, it's toast.

Buy a 123 Ignition distributor and that won't happen again.
 
adawil2002 said:
The weights have cut the body of the distributor, it's toast.

Buy a 123 Ignition distributor and that won't happen again.
Click to expand...


I vaguely recall seeing a 6 cylinder distributor body with machined braze in a seam pattern similar to your photo. Never understood it, but I also was not that interested in the motivation since I have also seen many other unexplained bizarre modifications, including shaved sidewalls for tight tire fitment.

It would be interesting to see the distributor's innards and put the latest disassembly theory to rest. I am somewhat dubious absent the existence of noise, filings and seriously degraded engine performance. But maybe all of that was present. Of course dropping the distributor after removal from long term liquid nitrogen storage is probably not a good idea either.:-(
 
I will dissemble and report back

Compared to this eBay pic of a similar unit my broken one is missing the rotation arrow and a good deal of the identification characters.

Could my broken distributor really be missing several millimetres perfectly machined from the inside by a rotating 'mystery'.!?

I will post a few pics when I get a chance to take it apart.

I hear arde is having a bare distributor body sale coming up. I do like those automatic indicator lights tho. One my earliest bmw photo ear worms is those nice bright coloured lenses that dim when you turn the headlights on. Oops, I digress.
Cheers
al
 

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Picture of fracture

I will read that. Tx for the legwork.

I see the rest of the "missing" characters are on the lower part of the fracture.
 

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Last edited:
WAG: is it conceiveable that some PO tried to graft two dizzies together? I can't imagine why, but the "crack" is too perfect not to have been cut with some precision.
 
I have a good distributor body you can have for the price of shipping (and of course a donation to the site). Let me know if you need it.

Peter
 
Honolulu said:
WAG: is it conceiveable that some PO tried to graft two dizzies together? I can't imagine why, but the "crack" is too perfect not to have been cut with some precision.
Click to expand...


Even one steel advance weight - spinning at a high speed - would probably make short work of an aluminum-alloy/pot metal distributor body.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I would expect to see resultant filings or cuttings strewn about the distributor body or the immediate area. Although I would also expect some significant noise, if one of the weights (or another part of the assembly) let loose while the vehicle was in cruise or acceleration mode, perhaps the din of road and engine noise would have masked any ongoing self-destruction. :-?

It still would be interesting to know exactly what failed and whether it could have been avoided. Was it a maintenance failure or more likely unanticipated metal fatigue? Guessing even if a spring was dislodged, the weight would still be restrained by a metal stop. However, it may be possible that if a weight were not fully tensioned by an attached spring and allowed to repeatedly strike a metal stop, the stop would eventually weaken and . . . voila, hello distributor body.





Food for thought?
Distributoroverhaulmech.jpg~original
 
Yah, springs are intact and weights are behaving normally and are restrained enough that I cannot push them out by hand far enough to come close to touching the inside body of the distributor.

No visible damage to weight mechanism.

Brief exam showed a couple of shavings in bottom of distributor. Pics later.

Shaving are less than a hair thickness, a millimetre or two wide, and a couple of centimetres long. Like a mini lathe would make.

I am currently thinking something may have fallen in the distributor and became jammed between spinning weight mechanism and stationary distributor body.
 
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