Vacuum Advance Mounting

[Pep48]

There is a small pin on the distributor breaker plate (next to the points) which the arm of the vacuum advance attaches to.

Seems to me that there must be some sort of fastener to keep the arm from popping off. I don't see a groove on the pin for an "E-clip"?

Mine is missing.

Anyone know what type on clip or fastener is used?

Thanks!

[Happy 46R]

Hello Pep48,

Not sure this will help however on my spare Chrysler Corporation of Canada spare distributor the vacuum advance lever simply fits over the pin. I cannot find any sort of fastener or clip that retains the arm. Couple of photos of the spare I have.

[Mark D]

No clip on any of the dozen that I’ve rebuilt. I believe that the arms rigidity within the vacuum advance makes it hard to jump off. 

[Los_Control]

I'm guessing no there is no clip.

The vacuum advance is bolted solid to the side of distributor and the plate also is stable .... yes it rotates.

So with plate in place then attach arm of vacuum advance and then tighten the vacuum advance to side ..... it cannot  pop out of position.

 

I do not remember removing a clip from my 1950 distributor while converting it to electronic ignition.

When I assembled the 1979 dodge slant 6 distributor to complete the conversion .... 1979 just has a hole in the plate the vacuum advance arm slides into .... no clip to hold it.

They never needed a clip to hold them once all is bolted together.

[9 foot box]

   I have some distributors as spares. The original retainer clip looks like this, I lost one and replaced it with an e-clip from the hardware store selection. The arm isn’t going to jump off the pin, it’s just what I did.  Rick D.

[Los_Control]

Here is a picture of mine before I modified it .... there was no clip.

 

 

 

[desoto1939]

on my unit there is a spring clip that hold the vacuum advance arm in place but it might not be necessay to have one in place. I looked in my 39 desoto parts book and there is no listing for a spring clip to hold the lever onto the stud.

 

Rich Hartung

desoto1939@aol.com

Edited Thursday at 08:50 PM by desoto1939

[Pep48]

The reason I think it needs a fastener is because when I rotate the breaker plate (as the vacuum advance shaft moves) the shaft pops off of the pin.

Found them today at Ace Hardware. Need to bring in my breaker plate to get the right size. These are called "Push nuts for un-threaded shafts"

I will report back with my results.

[Pep48]

Hi Rich same here, there is no clip listed in the parts book (at least not in my parts books).

Sonny

[Los_Control]

Just my 2 cents.

If things are working as they should, the plate rotates smoothly on a flat plane ...

I had one distributor with ball bearings it rotated on .... while I did free it up, the ball bearings had rust on them and were no longer smooth and round .... the plate would go up and down as it rotated.

 

And if the vacuum advance is frozen and non working, when the plate rotates and the advance arm does not .... something has to give and the pivot point with no clip would be the weak link.

 

The vacuum advance will pivot with vacuum applied to it ... have you tried this approach to use a little hand held vacuum pump to operate the vacuum advance?

Does the lever still pull off using the vacuum pump? .... this is what the parts will see is a vacuum moving the parts. .... not you manually moving them.

 

So in a perfect world, no clip is needed .... If you have something less then perfect .... A clip to hold the arm on may not be the correct fix.

 

 

These are pretty cheap and many uses for them around a vehicle.

[clarkede]

You guys just made me realize that the advance "pin" was hitting the magnetic sleeve of the Pertonix electronic ignition that I installed a couple years ago.  Thanks!

 

Also, you can see that I do not have any type of retaining clip to keep the arm from popping off of the pin.  I really don't think there is any chance that it would just pop off by itself without unbolting the vacuum advance from the side of the distributor.  

 

I am going to be physically cleaning up my distributor in the next few weeks to a month - including possibly repainting it.  I would also like to fix the bladder inside the advance as I'm sure it's dry-rotten.  Los_Control - I love your idea of testing it with a vacuum pump - which I will also do for the fun of it and watch what happens before and after I clean it up.  I've seen where the vacuum advance can be pried into with a lot of patience, so I might give that a try for fun.  Otherwise I will attempt to get a new one.  Anyone ever attempt to repair it themselves?  Is it even worth trying?

[9 foot box]

   I don’t have that vacuum tool. And don’t know what I’d do with it. Seems like it should have heavier tubing for suction. I did rob a vacuum pump from a refrigerator as a vacuum source for checking wiper motors and advance mechanism’s on distributors. When I saw that the pin on the advance plate had a groove for a retainer, I figured that an e-clip was the way to insure that the arm stayed on the pin. Seems to work, I’ll leave it on. I’ll save that one wire retainer that was used before e-clips were invented. They used cotter pins and horseshoe clips when our vehicles were built. Thanks for the input. 

[vintage6t]

5 hours ago, clarkede said:

I've seen where the vacuum advance can be pried into with a lot of patience, so I might give that a try for fun.  Otherwise I will attempt to get a new one.  Anyone ever attempt to repair it themselves?  Is it even worth trying?

 

I have. I used a donor diaphragm from another advance. The donor was a new advance with the same diameter that I had lying around.  The original donor application was unknown.

 

1. Pried both cans open.

2. Removed both arms from thier respective diaphragms by drilling out the attaching rivet.

3. Riveted the old arm to the new diaphragm. Sealed the rivet with weather strip cement.

4. Sealed the diaphragm to the old can with weather strip cement.

5. Peened the lip of the old cover back onto the can.

 

Between prying and peening the advance got kind of beat up but it worked fine. I took pictures of the process when I did it but looks like I deleted them. Attached pic is the finished working advance.

 

Edited yesterday at 12:11 PM by vintage6t

[soth122003]

Man Vintage, did that thing owe you money? When I first saw the pic I thought it was wielded. I remember working on my fuel sender and how soft the metal was. It looked a lot like that when I finished. But if it works, you did a good job. Of course, I am a function over form kinda guy. If it has to look pretty, I get some one else to help.

 

Joe Lee

[clarkede]

6 hours ago, vintage6t said:

I have. I used a donor diaphragm from another advance. The donor was a new advance with the same diameter that I had lying around.  The original donor application was unknown.

 

1. Pried both cans open.

2. Removed both arms from thier respective diaphragms by drilling out the attaching rivet.

3. Riveted the old arm to the new diaphragm. Sealed the rivet with weather strip cement.

4. Sealed the diaphragm to the old can with weather strip cement.

5. Peened the lip of the old cover back onto the can.

 

Between prying and peening the advance got kind of beat up but it worked fine. I took pictures of the process when I did it but looks like I deleted them. Attached pic is the finished working advance.

That looks great and basically exactly what I was thinking of doing.   I haven't thought far enough ahead to get a "working" donor vacuum advance module to remove. I do have a spare complete distributor with vacuum advance attached, but I just did a suck test on it and of course i can blow or suck air right through it, so I'm sure the diaphragm in it is also shot. 

I'm wondering if some other sort of high-temp silicone film could be used to make the diaphragm.  I see a lot of options available on the Internet for pump diaphragms including Teflon/silicon/rubberized fabric and so forth. I remember, back in the day, using a tire inner-tube to replace my fuel pump diaphragm until I could find a replacement. Oh the memories... 

[clarkede]

By the way, the spare distributor I have does have the clip on the vacuum advance arm.  I guess some have it and some don't. 

 

[Los_Control]

14 hours ago, 9 foot box said:

 I don’t have that vacuum tool. And don’t know what I’d do with it

There is quite a bit you can use them for. Setting the A/F screw on the carburetor is easy .... always looking for the highest vacuum for a good running engine.

Turn in the screw til the vacuum drops, then open it up until you reach the highest vacuum. Same with timing .... adjust distributor to the highest vacuum.

Recently I used it to bench test the EGR valve on the wife car.

If you open a old motors manual to troubleshooting, will be a whole page on different circumstances of a vacuum reading, you can tell if you have restricted exhaust, bad valves, late ignition timing ... pretty handy tool to have .... the hand pump claims you can bleed your brakes with it ..... I tried once but had bad results.

 

[clarkede]

This brings me to a question about a distributor that I have had for many, many years.  A little backstory... My original Plymouth P15 engine blew a rod after having it rebuilt by a bad machine shop back in 1986.  I got about 15K miles on it before this happened.  When it blew, it had a hole in the side of the engine block the size of a grapefruit (see engine image - lower right).  The main engine crankshaft bearing came through the hole and ended up sitting on top of the engine.  I still have the twisted up bearing - nearly 40 years later.   In 1991, I replaced the P15 (218) engine with a D42 (218) engine that I extracted from a 1952 Dodge Coronet.

 

I was young and I remember using the distributor from the P15 and using it in the D42 engine that I was putting in the car.  The P15 distributor worked in the D42 engine, but for years I've wondered if the D42 distributor was actually a better distributor.  Now, 35 years later, I don't know if I would ever switch back to the distributor that came in the D42 engine, mainly, since I am currently am running with the Pertronix electronic ignition module in it (that I personally love).  I know, I know... some of you think they are ticking time-bombs waiting to fail, but (knock on wood) I haven't had a problem with the Pertronix.  Now, I just set the timing and don't need to fiddle with adjusting the dwell and periodically replacing the condensor.  Anyway, any opinions on the "spare"  D42 distributor??  I also now notice says "Splash Proof Distributor" on the label.

[vintage6t]

If I'm not mistaken the p15 is a 218 and the D42 is a 230. So the larger displacement and prob different compression ratio would have different timing curves for optimal performance  vs. The 218. Therefore different distributors. Prob other design improvements between the two as well.

 

Bottom line though is if it's not broke don't fix it. What I would do is setup your spare to be in working order and store it in your trunk. If your Petronix does go out on the road, the spare will be a quick and easy swap to get you going again.

[clarkede]

Thanks for the information! 

I've always assumed that D42 was a 218, but now that you mention it I don't have any evidence either way.  All, I know is I pulled all the components off my P15 engine and put them on the replacement D42 engine.  I would have liked to have migrated over the "hydromatic" transmission.  I had never heard of this and thought it would have been so cool to have.  Unfortunately, if I remember correctly, the bell housing and transmission were bigger and I couldn't interchange them.  I suppose I might have lucked out keeping the standard transmission, because it has never given me any issues (knock on wood).

 

I'm 3/4 through my complete restoration of my Special Deluxe and finally putting things back together.  As I get a little closer to starting it back up, I will take your advice and get the spare distributor working and put it in the trunk as a backup.  Thanks for the great advice!