Leaderboard

Definitely disconnect the battery. Also I've had a wrench fall between the positive terminal and an ac line. After the sparks stopped there was a nice hole in the tube. Now I prefer pulling the negative side and leaving the positive terminal covered.

Look into the relay mod for triggering the starter motor. It takes the load off the ignition switch when in the start position. Easily a car park job. Disconnect the battery and remove the positive cable from the starter motor before removing it from the bell housing Cheers Bennie

Easy - two fasteners, the one is a bit blind but not that big of a deal. Sounds like you have but make sure the power supply and cables are good. Also you can replace the $20 contacts inside and be good to go. The starter brushes and motor are almost always fine.

To close the loop on this: Figured it was time to stop thinking about it and actually do it, since I just completed a 12-day road trip carrying a lot of stuff and pulling a boat, during which the RR wheel well was within a cm of the tire - turns out that in addition to being old and soft, a little less than a turn had broken off of the bottom of the spring (it was intact when I replaced the shocks last summer). When I called the dealer to place an order, the parts guy asked for the last eight, and I don't have a Baja, so I called my buddy who does and he supplied his... and the parts guy said that it listed the 20380AE39A spring, which only confused things. So I ordered two of the 50A, and the idiots in the (Portland?) warehouse shipped one, and I put it in yesterday and it fits fine and looks great, though I won't really know until I load it up. But if it's stiffer, I should be made in the shade.

I used the Ford Escort distributor on my 2.5 frankenmotor with EJ22 heads and dual Weber IDF carbs. It was fitted into a long travel buggy. I had to fuss with the slots and I think file the drive tang a little. The slot in the cam and the tang don't have the same offset from the centerline but there is some float so the tang can slide on a pin. To me this is a bad situation because every revolution causes the drive tang to shuffle in the slot and on the pin. Expect high wear here. I ended up using an aftermarket cam which did not have a drive slot so I was able to machine the drive slot to fit correctly. It runs best with 15 degrees of initial advance but that causes too much total advance so I need to limit that. The Escort used a couple different versions of the TFI module and the one I got had the bastard first year TFI that was only made for one year and has issues. I bought up 4 of the modules on ebay and in stores and every single one was dead. I ended up adapting a GM HEI module with good results. I carry a spare cap, rotor and HEI module for trailside repairs. Still looking for a programmable digital ignition that doesn't cost $500. Right now I have a great engine that runs with just a few wires and a fuel line including a one wire alternator. It would be a shame to add a complex computer to something this simple.