Cracked Dis-trouble-ular Cap...

[cosmicbrat]

I finally found what was making this 305 miss so strangely occasionally...

I thought it was a sticky valve, while others thought it was a wearing-out cam...

This AM the truck barely started after a lot of aggressive persuasion...
It seemed to be running the same as after the neighbor's psychotic boyfriend peed in my truck's gastank... I knew it was pee, because the first tank filler that he peed in, I had removed the rusty leaky tank, and his mess had made a little puddle on the ground at the passenger side tank filler... Too bad I hadn't had the truck wired to the body, and to a watered wire-grid on the ground, direct to the house's 120 volts AC... that would sure have been an interesting, and HOT to sizzling, wakeup call for the little monster, and maybe even a new-style dance done by the perpetrator of that peepee crime.. and it would have been very likely that he would have sung a new high note or two, or tune even, which would have probably woke half the neighborhood... It's just too-bad I missed out on that new musical opportunity for a little neighborly "shock'n sizzle".


...This morning I managed to drive five blocks, with the engine doing all the symptoms of "water" in the gastank, and very much like gasline freeze-up too, given that this was the first night the temperature went down to -7 celsius.. The engine just up and quit and died permanent, five blocks from home... Hey! at least it wasn't five miles.. oh sigh and yay...

I ruled out fuel and fuel-pump, by priming the carb.. and got no fire...

I ruled out coil, because coils usually Suddenly die, and the motor suddenly acts like an electric motor that's just had its plug pulled.. and this one slalled a lot, and chugged a lot, just like water in the gas...

I ruled out electric when a spark tester got strong sparks...

There wasn't anything else to checkout...

Upon closer examination, I found that one of the 8-contacts inside the distributor-cap had cracked-out, and fell into the distributor...
I can't find it, looking down in there, and I really don't want to tear the whole mechanism apart to find it, unless I really really have-to..

And the plastic button fell off the cap as I was removing the cap...

My spare used old cap didn't fire the engine.. so I went and bought a new set cap and rotor.. which I put on tomorrow, after this horrid Manitoba winter storm is ended...

I sure hope the chunk of missing metal didn't short-out/burn-out the reg...

I suppose what happened, was that the distributor cap's electrodes were so badly worn-out, that the excessive spark needed to bridge the gap caused excessive heat in that electrode, which eventually degraded the plastic and metal of that part of the cap, making its integrity so brittle, cindery, and powdery, that it just fell apart... Is that correct?..

I suppose I should have realized it was the cap, from the progressive drop in gas millage, and the fact that new plugs didn't even slightly cure the gas millage drop off... I suppose that a gas millage drop that new plugs don't cure, nor even affect, means bottom-line "bad-distributor"... I wish they had have taught this in school...

So where did that little piece of metal-contact go..?

Will it damage anything in the distributor's mechanisms?.. or will it just sit harmlessly on/or near the gear "upper lip ring"..? somewhere way down there in that turny thingamabobwhozits..?
I really really hope I don't need to go digging for it!..




And what's thet thar message that came up just before this forum's webpage loaded?.. something about this forum's IP expiring soon..??