I just got my friend's teenage son to buy a '64 Valiant hardtop as his first car. Another recruit! I was helping him to get it road worthy and was going to show him some maintanence tips. I couldn't find any specs for setting the points on this sight. Am I mistaken or was there a section for papers, articles, and specs on the old sight. Anyway, does anyone have that info handy? Also any tips tricks that make setting the points easier would be welcome. My technique can be improved upon I'm sure. Thanks.

Slantlover

They didn't disappear, the articles link is off of the main webpage www.slantsix.org

Hmm.. how about going to electronic ignition instead of points? The swap can be done in less then an hour or two once you have the parts.

The contact gap should be .017 to .023". Dwell around 41-46 degrees. I think I used to set mine an .019", which gave me 42* dwell. Remember, as your dwell changes, so does your timing! I would go with an electronic set up. Its such a pain to change points on a slant, especially on an A body! And the points start wearing out as soon as you start the engine. If you do, make sure you get an electronic voltage regulator, the contact type cant handle the ecu current and will burn out. The swap will only take an hour or so, and you can set the timing and forget about it till you want to check your it at your next tune up!

Or you could get a Petronix conversion that replaces your points/condensor and fits inside orginal distributor and only two wires to connect.

If you are going to keep the points, here is a trick I use. First, set the point gap as suggested above. It is easiest to remove the distributor when working on it. Then install the dist. and hook up a dwell meter. Fire up the car and read the dwell. You want it as close to 45 as possible. Now remove the cap & rotor and crank the engine, watching the dwell. It will vary between a high and low reading. Compare this reading to the running reading. I then loosen the hold-down screw and adjust the points while cranking, compensating for the difference between the running and cranking readings. This will allow you to set the dwell very accurately without having to keep removing the cap, adjusting, installing cap, restarting, etc.

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Chuck Rivers, Webmaster