So, I was taking a cruise around town to test out the new rear shocks. That part went very well. No clunks, firm but comfortable ride. Might adjust rebound a bit, but it feels pretty close.

As I was heading home, I cruised along Main St in downtown Blacksburg, VA. It sputtered and died going up a little hill toward Alumni Mall at the eastern entrance to Virginia Tech. It wouldn't restart or fire, although I noticed it would spit as I turned off the key. It was the Friday of graduation week and all the restaurants and sidewalks were full of celebrating students and families. 4 strapping students were walking along and yelled "Hey, do you need help?!" After a moment of thought, I said "sure!" They were able to push me up a decent little hill onto Alumni Mall (a boulevard), right into a parking space. I thanked them kindly and they said cool car and walked off. As I was being pushed, a prowling tow truck passed us on Main St. He turned around and came to see what I needed. Nice kid - Trent of Campus Automotive. Turns out they take AAA and I made a call and requested him. 10 min later we were on our way to my house, 1.3 miles away. In the meantime, I popped the carb hat off and saw there was plenty of fuel to the squirters. Cranking it over sounded like compression on all cylinders. So, it's ignition related. If he hadn't stopped, I would have just walked home and got my tools and ign parts, but hey why not. Trent backed me perfectly into the garage. He liked the car and we chatted a bit and I flipped him a nice tip. Quickest tow job I've ever experienced.

So, what happened? I popped the dist cap off and hooked up a remote starter switch once the headers cooled a bit. The distributor looked fine inside with no damage. This is an old points dist with a Pertronix Ignitor and a stock Mopar coil w/ballast. It worked great for 15+ years in Project V Valiant and now in this car. Cranking while looking at the rotor - no turning. So, the gear shredded or something similar. Out comes the dist, and sure enough the gear had several teeth missing. Here's a new one on me: the shaft was basically seized in the bearings, although you could turn it with some substantial force. Upon turning the key switch on and off with the coil wire held close to a ground, I could see a fat spark, so the coil is OK.

Next up, I found another points dist, welded up one advance slot a bit to limit mech advance, installed an 8.5 deg vac adv can, and reinstalled the points plate and Pertronix. Set the Pertronix air gap and it spun freely. Moved the engine to TDC, and put the new dist into the engine. Fired up on the first crank and I set the timing and checked advance curve with my trusty Craftsman dialback timing light. Good to go again. I'm so glad this didn't happen on our trip to MD a few weeks back, although I did have spare dist and ign stuff in my racing spare parts boxes we took along. It would have taken some wiring and fab to make something work on this car, though.

This experience became an "OH, WHAT'VE I BEEN DOIN'?" moment for me. I have been towed (in my old 30s-60s Slant cars) about 7-9 times in the last 37 years (first time in 1989), and I think 75% of those times were due to the distributor or ignition failing in some way, usually the gear shredding. SO, why not just have a points distributor sitting in every car, or at least throw one in the car every time I travel? Points works great for most circumstances, and is the simplest ignition system possible. You only have to connect 1 wire! So, I found another points dist, set the point gap, dropped that one into the Coupe engine, and fired it up on the first crank. Now I have a nearly complete 1-wire ign system (minus the coil, which essentially never fail and you can buy anywhere) sitting in the back shelf of the Coupe wrapped in two layers of plastic bag and a layer of cloth for padding. I plan to have 2-3 more distributors either in my other cars, or sitting on a convenient shelf ready to grab as I hit the road. Why not? They're almost free, and I only need one wrench/socket (7/16") to swap the dist out in 5 minutes by the side of the road. Gotta love mechanical computers sometimes...

Fun Slanted times,
Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And in the \6 that link may be the distributor drive.

Great thought!

Grumble... Now I've got to scrounge a spare distributor... Grumble.

- Eric

I always have a complete Distributor in my box I carry to every race / trip. One year at Carlisle I bought a 5 gallon bucket of slant 6 distributors for $5. The guy wanted $5 each, and I said how many have you sold? He said, None! I said I'll take the whole bucket for $5! He said sold! I think there were 6 or 8 in the bucket. Some good , some not! But the price was right

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

An a Ballast resistor if you run one.

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Hyper_pak

This is an excellent story to illustrate why we like nylon distributor drive pinions rather than metal ones.

Nylon: distributor freezes up, gear breaks, end of damage list.

Metal: distributor freezes up, camshaft worm gets damaged, maybe oil pump drive pinion, too. End of damage list? How lucky do you feel?

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Lou, have you posted pics of your coupe on here anywhere? Sounds interesting.
Found 'em. Nice!

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“Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

Great input, everyone! I almost always have a dist with me, but just the electronic one. That one needs an ECU (like HEI). Points need nothing. Agreed on the "sacrificial" nature of the nylon gear, Dan. Anything else would get you into major engine repairs when it failed. Yep, have a ballast too...

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

I like to take my Valiant on long trips. 4 hours up to 24 hours away. I ALWAYS have a
n extra points dist. with me. Have not had to use it yet. Yet...... But its there just in case.

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I make rusty parts go fast. Norm
71 Road Runner
65 Valiant SW
79 Lil Red Express
78 D-300 Club Cab