Distributed

So, the other day my grandpa was over and he was talking about points and setting gaps and whatnot and I was pretty sure this thing didn't have points, but it got me looking into the 'pickup'. It looked easy enough to change out, so I bought it. Well, there was a clip on the underside that of it that held it down, which I ended up breaking. It's a weird clip that I assume I'd have an awful time trying to find a replacement for. One side of the clip was never found, so I assumed it was somewhere down in there waiting to cause an issue. In the end, I decided to just buy a whole new distributor.

I was worried about replacing it because you have to keep everything lined up exactly the same and blah blah. I swapped this out in less than 20 minutes with zero problems. Here's the hole it goes in, and the gears inside that you need to line things back up with.

 

Another scary obstacle overcome. I think. I guess I'll find out for sure a little later on. Here's the new one installed (minus cap and rotor).

 

 

 

I've been a bit bummed out about my progress, and the money I'm spending while seemingly getting no where. I took stock last night and decided that this really is something I still want to do (live in a motorhome) and that it's worth it to me to keep pumping more money into the project at this point.

 

The distributor really didn't cost me that much money. It was more the fear of messing it up that kept me from wanting to do it. 



On top of that new purchase, I have a new remanufactured carb on its way to me from Minnesota. Compared to the distributor, the carb is a lot more money. By far the most expensive one item I've purchased for the motorhome so far. I was planning on just buying a carb rebuild kit and rebuilding my original one but that would take time to do, and do right. This way I'll be able to just swap them out a lot quicker. And I'm really hoping that my rough idle problems are history after that. My new carb comes on Wednesday, but probably won't be able to install it until Friday. I can still rebuild my original one to keep as a spare.

Almost forgot to mention that I changed out my speedometer cable the other day. Went pretty easy, except the end that connects to my cruise control mechanism has too large of a connector. It works, but as it is, could fall out at any moment. I examined my old one when I took it out and I probably can make that one work again so I might reinstall that one, or else just try to rig the new one up somehow so it can't fall out.

I've decided that, for now, I'm done putting money into or working on anything that isn't related to getting the engine running properly. If I can't get it running properly than nothing else will matter anyway.