April 22, 20178 yr As I was replacing the rotor I noticed that there was a good bit of slop side to side in the distributor shaft. Didn't look right so I pulled the dist. out and took it apart. I ran it for a few minutes a couple of weeks ago and it seemed to run ok after some initial sputtering, but previous to that it hasn't run in 25 years. Its got 100K. Couldn't see much of any lubrication in that section. Is this slop normal? Doesn't look like there is much of a bushing that can be replaced on the upper end. Lower end seems fine. Looked on Rockauto for parts, but not much there. Cardone offers a rebuilt one, but really don't want one that's in poorer shape than I have now and don't know the quality of their rebuilds.
April 23, 20178 yr Its not normal. A good machine shop can rebush it. These guys do all manner of distributor repair: http://www.philbingroup.com GD
April 23, 20178 yr I used to rebuild these with bushings from a small machine shop. Definitely worth rebuilding, as the Hitachi electronics will last indefinitely. As opposed to the Mitsubishi distributors, usually found on 2wd models, which will wink out without warning and leave you walking... don't ask me how I know.
April 23, 20178 yr Author Its not normal. A good machine shop can rebush it. These guys do all manner of distributor repair: http://www.philbingroup.com GD kinda what I figured. The service manual says to set the air gap at .020 I think, and there's not way this is going to let that happen. There was MORE slop than that.
April 24, 20178 yr Yeah, I've seen them so sloppy that the reluctor was just bouncing around, triggering 2 or 3 sparks per cycle, backfiring and stopping the engine dead. But NEVER saw the electronics fail on a Hitachi, ever. As long as the engine had GOOD, clean oil, they didn't have a problem. But the least bit of sludge would fill in the spiral groove in the distributor shaft that fed oil to the upper bushing. Be sure to also thoroughly clean the centrifugal advance mechanism and lube with a little marine grease.
April 27, 20178 yr Author Got the A1 Cardone reman dist in yesterday. Definitely much tighter than my old one. Seems to be set up and adjusted correctly. Got it installed, haven't run it yet.
May 2, 20178 yr Author Now that I have everything hooked up, the new carb is on everything should be set for blast off. BUT now I don't have any spark. No spark at the plugs. No spark directly from the coil. This thing ran on the old carb three weeks ago. Only thing I've changed is the reman distributor. I'm thinking the pickup coil in the rebuilt dist is no good? I put an ohm meter on it and it showed 4.3 or so M ohms. My old dist coil shows about .9M ohms. Neither match what the book says but the old one did at least run. Am I thinking this through correctly? I've pulled the tach wire off the negative post to make sure it's not grounding out. The lead wires to the dist. check out ok.
May 5, 20178 yr Author Apparently the A1 Cardone distributors are not rebuilt to Ea81 Hitachi standards. I ordered a second one just for the heck of it and it performed the same way as the first. They seem to be mechanically sound, but the coil is not compatible. I pulled the coil out of my old distributor and replaced the one in their "rebuilt" one, I'm now getting good fire and it appears as though it's going to work fine. Buyer beware. Their part number is: 31-810 and Amazon and rockauto sell them as well as other outlets.
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