When I was pulling my motor today, I slightly smashed the distributor while lowering the motor onto the floor (yes, of course I now realize I should have pulled the distributor first). The only obvious damage is that the vacuum nipple is a little bent and crushed. I'm sure I can clean up the vacuum nipple itself, but should I be concerned about internal damage? If it holds vacuum, can I assume it's OK? What else would I check for?

It's not gonna hold vacuum. It's broken. You could re-braze it with some difficulty or just buy a new one.

It may be the light or angle of the picture, but the lower picture look like the vacuum nipple has torn the sheetmetal and the pod is junk.

They cost about $18 and someone with a phillips and straight edge screw driver can remove the old and reinstall the new one in about 15 minutes tops...

It actually does hold vacuum, but if the vacuum pod is available as a separate piece I'll go ahead and replace it.

Should be able to find a Wells/Duralast one that is CV3030, or Standard Motor VC-185

"It may be the light or angle of the picture, but the lower picture look like the vacuum nipple has torn the sheetmetal and the pod is junk."

That's what I was getting at but I didn't know if it was OK to say nipple on this site.

As I said, the pod does hold vacuum (the nipple is not actually cracked, that was just a shadow in the picture). It's useable, but if I'm ever going to take apart the distributor now would be the time (nothing else to do with the motor in the machine shop for who knows how long). Question is, how much could I benefit from a recurve? I'm going to have a newly rebuilt motor, bored 0.030, with compression around 8.7:1 static, with auto trans and a 2.71 rear gear. Most driving will be in town, so the goal would be low-RPM torque. I'll rarely go above 3000 RPM.

The recurve would benefit most if you had a better rear ratio and/or upgraded the intake to a 2 barrel...
Those 2.71's in a heavy A-body won't allow for the advance to be very fast...on another note...where the timing
curve could use a bit of help is in the initial part of the curve, so ditching the 15L governor for an 11R or 9R
governor would help... so swapping in a 1976 Federal or 1978 Super Six distributor would be nice...or using
one of the 4sec flat limiter plates would help.. then setting the initial higher than the 1974 "TDC" setting will
help... on another note...if using the 1974 Holley 1945 1 barrel, and the updated timing curve... you will
need to rebuild the carburator and up jet it to #61 and make sure the linkage and stops are set and adjusted
into the slots noted for the 1976 carburator...

Good Luck.

Yep, always pull the dist when installing/pulling an engine or moving it around. My brother and I once bent the main dist shaft in his 318 installing the engine in his 68 Dart. Took a while to figure out it would only get spark or 3-4 cylinders because the shaft was eccentric. Weird one...

I doubt you bent the shaft, but I would check it if you have trouble starting the engine. If nipple holds vac, then try it and see. I would order a new can anyway as a spare. They do burn out (get hole in diaphragm) anyway from time to time.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

I just found and ordered a couple (I think it was VC239, would have to go look) of these from Feebay, I found them for $~7 each.
a little while back I posted about finding an NOS dist in the same place that has an 11R vacuum pod on it/ and being mine's a truck, was suggested to find an 8.5R because my slant is in a truck. I actually have yet to hook vacuum to that new dist, just getting things moving on it again.....