How to replace a points distributor with an H.E.I.?

[hatzie]

Originally Posted by enaberif

You know its funny. I was looking up this information the other day myself and it seems like a lot of the key or critical things to know how to do is all black art or kept to a person.

You are right in that you plug that into the cap as shown but then you have to run a 10g minimum wire from the firewall bulkhead to the distributor.

With a truck that had points I've read that people say you can push the connector for the power wire for the distributor out of the firewall bulkhead because the feed wire for a point distributor only feeds if I remember 5-9v or something. So you have you have to pull this wire out and replace it with a proper wire to feed to the distributor.

Its the wiring from the bulkhead connector to the distributor which still has me confused.

The wire feeding the points coil is supposed to be a resistance wire that cuts the voltage down to @6vdc to extend the lifespan of the points. The start terminal on the starter feeds the coil 12vdc to give you more fire while cranking.

According to the wiring manuals... GM used 12awg or 3mm² SXL Pink BATT wire on the HEI trucks. This wire is terminated with Delphi Packard 56 terminals that can be purchased almost anywhere. In my recent experience... It's worth noting that NAPAs' supplier has cheaped out on their Delphi terminals... many of them are too thin to hold a crimp on the wire now. You can use them with a little solder but they are thin enough that the female terminals loosen on the male mates too. I use them as non damaging meter probes but you're better off to go online to Mouser or Del-City or... for terminals on your wires.

ACCEL makes a slick two terminal plug that contains the HEI BATT and TACH terminals (GOOGLE ACCEL 170072)... See Post #17.

Remove the tach wire from the ACCEL connector and put it in your toolbox or the circular filing cabinet. If you install a tach later on, or right now, you can slip the female terminal out of the single connector on the distributor end of your Tach harness and install it in the ACCEL connectors' TACH position.

I'm not a big fan of soldering wires where I don't have to. The Packard 56 Male terminal will carefully slip out of the firewall plug with needle nose pliers. You can liberate the HEI Power Wire whole from a salvage yard truck or make your own.
The Packard 56 Female terminal should slip right out of the BATT position of the ACCEL plug and the GM plug using a #00 or #000 slotted screwdriver to depress the retaining tang.
OR Get a 24" chunk 12AWG SXL Pink wire, route it as needed, and crimp on the correct terminals with a decent tool.
I used one of these for a while Amazon.com Delphi-Packard-Weatherpack-Crimper-Tool along with a pretty universal MOLEX 63811-1000 tool.

Ratcheting tools have the advantage that they do not open till you have crimped the terminal completely making a pressure welded bond between the terminal and the wire. If you intend to do more than a little wiring they are well worth the money and can usually be found for less than $100 each brand new. They hold their value fairly well so you could fleaBay them after you finish and end up spending at or less than the cost of the $20-$30 tools.
The first one to find, and the one you'll probably keep, is a GM 12085271 Open Barrel Terminal Crimping Tool. I've done a lot of Delphi sealed terminals using the Delphi 12085271 on the wire barrel and the non ratcheting Weatherpak tool for crimping the retaining tangs around the seals on MetriPak and WeatherPak terminals.
I splurged and bought a Delphi 12085270 somewhere between $85 & $90 in the last couple years so the 12085271 tool only gets used on connectors that don't have seals or on smaller gauge terminals and wires.
More recently I picked up one of the Performance Plus WHPT-17 MetriPak 280, 480, & 630 10-12ga terminal crimp tools for around $110 to round out the collection. It works quite well on 10-12ga non sealed terminals as well.