Brush and Spring ,,You Tell Me What Happened

[GOPAPA]

My truck (1971 350 )

I was out for a fun drive last week and came home parked the truck in the garage , it ran just fine and has been running great for ever.., it has always started up right off the get go .no sound like rrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrr rrrrrrr ,,it's been a fast starter since day one..

Anyway I decided to put new plugs in and also a new fuel pump ,,plugs was about time and fuel pump was just for good measure as their life span is ,,you never know..

so ,after the installing of these two things I went to crank it over and "NOTHING" whole bunch of rrrrr rrrrr rrrrr and no quick start ,, I thought ,,darn bad fuel pump,, so checked if there was gas coming thru the line and into the carb ,,yep two good squirts there,,

So next to see if it had fire at the plugs ,, "nope" none there,, next a test to see if the coil was bad,, what i did here was replace it with a brand new one that I have had for a few years that i had for my 72 that I sold , Still no Juice to the plugs.. Just about out of ideas ..and then I decided to look a little deeper and I found that the brush spring was not pushing the brush down deep enough to make contact,,,

I have never had a brush spring get soft before ,,have you? I had to leave the rubber washer out after I stretched the spring out to make it reach ,, put it back together and it cranked right up.

I went and got a new brush and spring and washer and the guy at the parts house told me that in his 8 years he has never sold these parts by them self .only the whole distributor...

So,, any ideas what made the spring get that weak and not reach ?

Sorry next time I will down size

[IMG][/IMG]

[jjzepplin]

Yup mine did something like that. It was just after a bad accident and I think the cab hit the distributor.

[LockDoc]

Originally Posted by GOPAPA

My truck (1971 350 )

I was out for a fun drive last week and came home parked the truck in the garage , it ran just fine and has been running great for ever.., it has always started up right off the get go .no sound like rrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrr rrrrrrr ,,it's been a fast starter since day one..

Anyway I decided to put new plugs in and also a new fuel pump ,,plugs was about time and fuel pump was just for good measure as their life span is ,,you never know..

so ,after the installing of these two things I went to crank it over and "NOTHING" whole bunch of rrrrr rrrrr rrrrr and no quick start ,, I thought ,,darn bad fuel pump,, so checked if there was gas coming thru the line and into the carb ,,yep two good squirts there,,

So next to see if it had fire at the plugs ,, "nope" none there,, next a test to see if the coil was bad,, what i did here was replace it with a brand new one that I have had for a few years that i had for my 72 that I sold , Still no Juice to the plugs.. Just about out of ideas ..and then I decided to look a little deeper and I found that the brush spring was not pushing the brush down deep enough to make contact,,,

I have never had a brush spring get soft before ,,have you? I had to leave the rubber washer out after I stretched the spring out to make it reach ,, put it back together and it cranked right up.

I went and got a new brush and spring and washer and the guy at the parts house told me that in his 8 years he has never sold these parts by them self .only the whole distributor...

So,, any ideas what made the spring get that weak and not reach ?

Sorry next time I will down size

Was the spring discolored like it might have been overheated? I've never had that happen myself.

LockDoc

[GOPAPA]

Originally Posted by LockDoc

Was the spring discolored like it might have been overheated? I've never had that happen myself.

LockDoc

I just went and looked at the spring Leon and it is dark colored ,,but not burnt and it still has some kick to it as for spring ,,it is not shiny like the new one but being in where it was ,,it gets discolored anyway I think.. I did use a q-tip and cleaned very little lead dust up from the brush ,,but it was minimal ..

The brass plate thingy in the bottom was also bent a little and I straightened it out with needle nose,, so it got hung up it seems ,,but why and how?

[72kool]

funny story about those parts. ive had some issues in the past with old parts going bad and just 40 year maintenance. about 4 years ago i did the HEI swap. what a difference that made in performance! long story short, about two years ago i was having issues and pulled the cap and realized after its last tune up, i didnt put the brush and spring in the cap! never noticed in the performance at all. thats a hot distributor! goes to show how much parts can differ from each other and how lucky i was.

[midniteblues]

you could pull the distrubuter and check the end play of the gear.it could be way outa spec. Pushing up on the rotor when the engine is running.
Exsessive cam walk could also be the culprit.

You could check the lift of the rotor by slighty turning the crank pulley back and forth with the cap off.

The plates in the distributer that the wieghts are on are only pressed onto the shaft they are also splined. but could possibly lifted up somehow.(highly unlikely)

Your arc marks should be about centered on the cap contacts.

My vote is cheap spring wire or poor engine grounding or the ground strap for the coil causing resistence.

I noticed lately with distributer caps the quality has gone way down.

[tdangle]

Over the years, I have seen this happen to a couple of vehicles I've owned. As a interesting story, Years ago, I was on vacation visiting my Father on the east coast and he was telling me about his carpool van (GMC) that just was not running right. He had it in the shop a couple of times and although they kept charging him to "fix it", It still didn't run well. I opened up the HEI cap and found the center button/spring was pretty much melted. Put a new cap and rotor on it and the van ran great.

[leftybass209]

Weak springs and heat, can cause a lot of headaches. That stuff can get easily bound up too on cheap parts. Pretty damn good diagnosing skills to find that was your issue.

[VetteVet]

Here is a very good tutorial on rebuilding the distributor.

http://www.rustpuppy.org/ignition2/Ignition%202b.htm

[GOPAPA]

Originally Posted by VetteVet

Here is a very good tutorial on rebuilding the distributor.

http://www.rustpuppy.org/ignition2/Ignition%202b.htm

Hello,, been awhile ,,you sure know your wiring ,, That is a good 101 for rebuiding a Distributor... I will remember you if I need some wiring tips ,, thx