Barn Find

[joenailer]

Trying to get a 48 B1C to fire that I found in a barn. all the wiring is in pretty rough shape but i was told it was running 2 years ago. did all the fuel cleanuo, drained the tank, blew lines clean, rebuilt carb. feel like the the fuel system is set and moved on to the fire system. replace a missing plug wire and as I was looking over the distributor, I noticed that #1 the distributor cap doesn't have a reference notch to alighn it on the distributor and #2 that the rotor button was really sloppy. so, no problem with rotor but I worried about timing the cap. is this normal?

[Dodgeb4ya]

The wrong cap is installed most likely. There are 3 styles of distributor caps- early up to 1948- it has a internal 1" long index tab inside of the cap, 1949- 50- it has an external 1/2" wide index tab , then the smaller diameter cap 1951 and up.

The loose rotor is probably because of the spring tension clip has fallen out of the center of the rotor. The engine will still run with out it but you should have it.

You need-Compression/fuel and spark at the proper time to start a engine.

Have you clean and adjusted or replaced the points?

[joenailer]

I got the impression it was the wrong cap. Back when we built and blew up the small block fords I remember that the caps indexed themselves and was surprised when this one didn't. The spring on the rotor button was still in place, it just spun on the shaft, like the index was missing. Looks pretty worn on the inside. I'll take the cap to NAPA and try to find the correct one. Thanks

[Rusty O'Toole]

Look closer, there should be a notch in the distributor body and a matching protrusion on the cap.

The whole distributor may have been changed at some time. Can you read the model number on the side? Stamped on the oval tag.

You need the correct cap, rotor and points for your model distributor. Should be the 1GS model but could have been replaced with a newer 1AT or 1AG.

[joenailer]

I've run my finger around the lip of the distributor and can find no notch that the index lip on the cap would fit into. I did find the tag with the part number on it. #12233564 I also found on the bottom of the tag, AP-4001-160064121. researching those numbers now.