Distributor / points help

[thebelvedereman]

I've rebuilt a few Distributors on flat heads, but it's been quite a while, and I've never ran across this problem, I got my points today and when I took the distributor out to rebuild it, I noticed that the points that were in it where the exact opposite of the points I received, so I double checked with the parts catalog and they all match the ones that I received, and I haven't been able to find the ones I need LOL, I'm guessing that this distributor came out of a marine engine, and it's not original to the car, it's an Autolite BR 4001 and it says splash-proof distributor on it which I don't recall seeing before, there is not enough of the old points left to read a part number off of them, any ideas?

[thebelvedereman]

18 minutes ago, thebelvedereman said:

I've rebuilt a few Distributors on flat heads, but it's been quite a while, and I've never ran across this problem, I got my points today and when I took the distributor out to rebuild it, I noticed that the points that were in it where the exact opposite of the points I received, so I double checked with the parts catalog and they all match the ones that I received, and I haven't been able to find the ones I need LOL, I'm guessing that this distributor came out of a marine engine, and it's not original to the car, it's an Autolite BR 4001 and it says splash-proof distributor on it which I don't recall seeing before, there is not enough of the old points left to read a part number off of them, any ideas?

I guess I'm going to call Andy and see what he says

[thebelvedereman]

After a little more research, I'm pretty sure the points for a 1950 IAT distributor will work, at least they sure look the same, I ordered them will find out what happens when they get here LOL

[maok]

A Pertronix module will work too.

[thebelvedereman]

7 minutes ago, maok said:

A Pertronix module will work too.

I was thinking about that, I was also thinking of just converting it to 12 volt and putting in one of those GM HEI distributors, but I spent $175 on a new 6-volt battery last week, it's amazing how much the price of batteries have gone up in the past 10 months, the battery I bought was a deep cycle golf cart battery, they wanted $290 for one of those red sealed top batteries, and that was the only two options my local store had ?

[Adam H P15 D30]

3 minutes ago, thebelvedereman said:

I was thinking about that, I was also thinking of just converting it to 12 volt and putting in one of those GM HEI distributors, but I spent $175 on a new 6-volt battery last week, it's amazing how much the price of batteries have gone up in the past 10 months, the battery I bought was a deep cycle golf cart battery, they wanted $290 for one of those red sealed top batteries, and that was the only two options my local store had ?

If you go this route, check out a Slant 6 conversion.  All done with off the shelf O.E. parts for ~$100.00 or so.

[maok]

7 minutes ago, thebelvedereman said:

I was thinking about that, I was also thinking of just converting it to 12 volt and putting in one of those GM HEI distributors, but I spent $175 on a new 6-volt battery last week, it's amazing how much the price of batteries have gone up in the past 10 months, the battery I bought was a deep cycle golf cart battery, they wanted $290 for one of those red sealed top batteries, and that was the only two options my local store had ?

You can go pertronix with 6volts too. The deep cycle is not ideal for your car.

[thebelvedereman]

3 minutes ago, maok said:

You can go pertronix with 6volts too. The deep cycle is not ideal for your car.

Deep cycle is better than no cycle LOL

[maok]

4 minutes ago, thebelvedereman said:

Deep cycle is better than no cycle LOL

Only when or if your generator/alternator fails.

[dwest999]

I had considerable issues finding the right points for my distributor which was also an IBR 4001.  After some research I learned that mine came out of a late 50s Mopar.  I then reached out to Bernbaum's and they sent me the correct points.  If you're sticking with points call them.

[Dodgeb4ya]

The distributor you have is basically for a 1957 up Plymouth or Dodge six.

Two styles of point sets are used in MoPar sixes from say 1940 thru 1960 ...clockwise wound from the pivot shaft hole and counter clockwise.

I always make sure when buying or ordering points to be sure which way they are wound or clocked from the pivot hole...then never an issue.

It is always best when ordering to show them a picture of the parts in your distributor...parts guys these days are clueless.

The factory Autolite part# for your distributor points is IGW 3028BS.

[Dave72dt]

When I was in the parts business, I always took them out of the box to show the customer.  Even better is when the customer brings the old parts with them for comparison.  It's not just the counter people who may be clueless.  There's probably a lot of ASE certified mechanics working in dealerships who've never seen or had to replace a set of points.

[Sniper]

1 minute ago, Dave72dt said:

When I was in the parts business, I always took them out of the box to show the customer.  Even better is when the customer brings the old parts with them for comparison.  It's not just the counter people who may be clueless.  There's probably a lot of ASE certified mechanics working in dealerships who've never seen or had to replace a set of points.

Back when I worked parts I had a customer come in for a set of plugs for his mid 70's Camaro.  So I looked them up, got them off the shelf, showed them to him and he was happy.  We got to BS'ing about his build and he mentioned he was running "double hump heads".  Now I am not a Chevy guy but I read Hot Rod and Car Craft back then and I was pretty sure they changed the design sometime between the year his Camaro was made and the year those heads were made.  So I told him to hold up and got a set of plugs for the head donor, sure enough the seat was different.  One was tapered, one was gasket.  He asked me how he could prevent that from happening in the future, told him to either ask for plug from the donor, or just bring an old plug in and use that as a cross reference.

 

One other one, had a lady who's husband had her come in to get plugs for an 80's Cutlass.  At that time Olds was slapping Cutlass on just about every car they made, FWD, RWD, 4, 6 and 8 cylinders.  She didn't know which one it was nor even how many cylinders it had.  Asked her if she wanted to use the phone to call him for clarification, but he wasn't home. 

 

Sometimes even the customer is clueless about the basics.

[Dave72dt]

Ah, yes!  The stories a counter person could tell.  Proof there are "clueless" on both sides of the counter.  Knowing there is likely an uninformed person at the counter, we also need to be prepared with correct and adequate information.

[thebelvedereman]

25 minutes ago, Dave72dt said:

Ah, yes!  The stories a counter person could tell.  Proof there are "clueless" on both sides of the counter.  Knowing there is likely an uninformed person at the counter, we also need to be prepared with correct and adequate information.

Talking about Clueless, when I bought the car last week , the gentleman I bought it from told me it was all original, and he bought it from the original owners, and that he had ran the numbers on everything, I had a little free time today so I ran the numbers on the engine and it turns out the engine is a 1957 Dodge/Desoto, that explains quite a bit ?

[blucarsdn]

My comment about 'points' might be a little off topic, however, I throw them out anyway.

I gave up on points, etc.,type ignitions over twenty-five years ago. I have tried many electronic conversions to a stock ignition many times, never had a bad, adverse experience, I learned a long time ago to follow the directions in lieu of trying to reinvent the wheel.

I recently purchased a 1953 Oldsmobile Super 88. The car is a dead stock 77.k mile 303 V8 that needs a lot of help to correct what I call 'deferred maintenance', cooling system, brakes, and complete tune up. There was noting about the ignition that was right, wrong plugs, bad wiring and a screwed up carb. The carb, a four barrel had many parts within that were not correct. The points in the distributor were burnt and the rotor was missing the contact end.

I did some checking around for availability of Pertronics components finding out that Pertronics now makes a conversion, 'Ignitor II' for stock ignitions which turns the stock ignition into an HEI unit. I ordered the Pertronix from Summit. The engine really runs nice and smooth now with instant acceration . Wm.

[KevinF77]

The Ignitor II module is definitely the way to go. Much more robust construction than the Ignitor I

[thebelvedereman]

2 hours ago, blucarsdn said:

My comment about 'points' might be a little off topic, however, I throw them out anyway.

I gave up on points, etc.,type ignitions over twenty-five years ago. I have tried many electronic conversions to a stock ignition many times, never had a bad, adverse experience, I learned a long time ago to follow the directions in lieu of trying to reinvent the wheel.

I recently purchased a 1953 Oldsmobile Super 88. The car is a dead stock 77.k mile 303 V8 that needs a lot of help to correct what I call 'deferred maintenance', cooling system, brakes, and complete tune up. There was noting about the ignition that was right, wrong plugs, bad wiring and a screwed up carb. The carb, a four barrel had many parts within that were not correct. The points in the distributor were burnt and the rotor was missing the contact end.

I did some checking around for availability of Pertronics components finding out that Pertronics now makes a conversion, 'Ignitor II' for stock ignitions which turns the stock ignition into an HEI unit. I ordered the Pertronix from Summit. The engine really runs nice and smooth now with instant acceration . Wm.

I think that's the way I'm going to go, I already ordered the points so I think I'm just going to stick them in there temporarily, so I can see if this thing even runs and take it from there, I might actually just do a 12 volt conversion and HEI distributor as long as it runs decent

[thebelvedereman]

This one is definitely going to be a long time keeper, it is one of the most rust free cars that I've ever owned in my life, I'm originally from New Jersey so I've seen a lot of rust LOL, supposedly this car came from Arizona originally, and it sure looks like it, it's got a bit of surface rust from being baked in the Sun but as far as the floor pans and trunk pan it is the cleanest I've ever seen, even the spare tire carrier, so as long as it runs fairly decent I'm just going to bite the bullet and do the 12 volt conversion, HEI distributor, and alternator, so I don't have to worry about it down the road (hopefully) I even thought about swapping in a modern drivetrain, but I really love the old flatheads

[blucarsdn]

19 hours ago, thebelvedereman said:

I think that's the way I'm going to go, I already ordered the points so I think I'm just going to stick them in there temporarily, so I can see if this thing even runs and take it from there, I might actually just do a 12 volt conversion and HEI distributor as long as it runs decent

As I stated in my earlier contribution, the Pertonix Ignitor II is the way to go.. I talked to Pertornix and the Tech at Summit Racing, I bought the Pertronix from Summit. I changed everything on my Olds ignition, Flame Thrower coil and 7mm Pertronix Flame Thrower wires. According to Pertonix the conversion makes the stock distributor into a HEI  system. Pertonix makes the Ignitor II in 4, 6 and 8 cylinder versions. 

[maok]

1 hour ago, blucarsdn said:

As I stated in my earlier contribution, the Pertonix Ignitor II is the way to go.. I talked to Pertornix and the Tech at Summit Racing, I bought the Pertronix from Summit. I changed everything on my Olds ignition, Flame Thrower coil and 7mm Pertronix Flame Thrower wires. According to Pertonix the conversion makes the stock distributor into a HEI  system. Pertonix makes the Ignitor II in 4, 6 and 8 cylinder versions. 

Do they do it in 6 volt?

[DonaldSmith]

Mine is 6-volt.

[Loren]

In another lifetime I worked in a large combination dealership. (Oldsmobile, SAAB and Fiat)

One day it was slow and I had to work on an Olds.

This car had the water pump flange come off and put the fan through the radiator.

Of course all 5 belts went flying and were gone.

So I went to parts and told them what I needed and the first question was "Do you have the old belts?"

"No"

"Then you're in trouble."

"Don't you have a belt chart?"

"GM doesn't have those."

It seems the General makes so many different combinations they don't even bother with keeping track of what they put on each car!

Without the old belt, the counterman had to give me his best three guesses of what might fit one belt at a time.

He hated it and I really hated it.

 

I understand the point set frustration. The cars that I worked on had Bosch distributors which for the most part were pretty good.

However, you could never trust any photo in the parts book because every point set could be found in a mirror image of the one you needed.

Bosch point sets came in a bubble card package not a box so you could see what you were getting without ripping apart the packaging.

[Sniper]

The Autolite catalog has pretty good illustrations of the parts.  Unfortunately, the copy I have (downloaded from this very site) only goes to 1952.

[thebelvedereman]

Update, finally got the correct points today, put my distributor all back together, took out the plugs filled the cylinders up with oil, just because I don't know how long it sat for, and I wanted to make sure the Rings weren't washed, cranked it over for a while, put the plugs back in, cranked it over once or twice it fired, but by that time it was dark out, it was raining pretty hard, and my battery was almost dead, so hopefully with a little luck she'll be up and running tomorrow