This is a photo of my distributor with the breaker points and that little silver cylinder who's title eludes me at this point...

 

Now I know that they're meant to be oiled or greased but this guy is gritty.

 

•how do I clean it? (Just unbolt it all and warm soapy water, good dry and replace in reverse sequence?)

•what do I use for oil/lube (wd40?)

•would this be a leading contributor to breaker points continuously needing to be reset? (Like every 3 months or so?)

And

•I found a little black plastic looking thing under the silver cylinder I unplugged and in bolted, ill uploa a pic in the next post.

 

Thanks for any help guys, if it helps you help me I did search YouTube for some video tips on cleaning distributors and I got as far as a guy showing me how to take the breaker points out and how advance works. (Very interesting, but not too much help)

Edited February 9, 201313 yr by popandwar

Ah- clean with a solvent like Brakeclean or carb cleaner, so it evaporates away afterwards.

 

Grease the square cam where the points rubbing block touches, that is why your points need re-setting all the time..

 

The cylinder is a capacitor, called a condensor in the dizzy, and it stores up electricity then discharges it all at once to build a fat spark. So if the condensor is old and leaky the spark is weak.

 

If you're pulling it apart, oil the pivots and rubbing faces of the advance weights underneath the plate that holds the points. If they dry out you will lose your machanical ignition advance. Use engine oil on them.

 

Don't forget that the power wire comng into the dizzy and going to the points must always be insulated from earth, so assemble any junctions carefully.

Excellent thanks mate, always a great help! :thumbsup:

any idea what the black thing is in the pic? it was under the condenser, it was essentially just floating around in there i think...one end (end you can see in pic) has a specific extrusion on it while the other appears to have a rougher surface giving the impression its snapped off of something

lol yes! that is the high-volatage contact from the top center inside of your dizzy cap! It won't run without it in place! It sits in with a spring behind it to keep it pushed down on the rotor, and the bit broken off is the rim that held it in place. You might be able to 'screw' it into its spring again, but if not get a new dizzy cap.

If you take out the last two Phillips screws you can lift that base-plate out and expose the advance weights below them. Give it all a clean, preferably with the dizzy out of the motor, but make sure you know exactly which way it goes back in.

 

There is an O-ring down the shaft that is letting oil vapour up into the dizzy, but its not worth replacing at the moment. You have to strip the dizzy right down to bits. Then again, does it have sideways play in the rotor shaft?? That will alter the points gap and timing, and when the main bush is worn its time for a new dizzy. You can still buy brand-new electronic ones for a couple of hundred bucks.

Alright haha, might be time for an upgrade. The car runs fine, high idle but hasn't had a cough since I took this photo. Ill give it a clean and Suss out a new cap. As for the sideways play, ill check that out too. Thanks for all your help mate.

 

Is carby cleaner flammable? Would this be a problem as a cleaning solution, seeing as the dizzy produces a spark?

Is carby cleaner flammable?

 

They can be, depends what they use as solvent, but they evaporate away very quickly. By the time you reassemble it the solvents would have gone.

 

Those aerosols that are very heavy have non-flammable chlorine solvents like the old dry-cleaning fluid.