[Scott Stoneburg]

Glad you found it and its an easy fix. Great work. And I commend your efforts to go through everything else just to double check.

[cnc]

Again great work Paul.....glad to hear it was something simple
Is this the same Dist at dyno time.....?????

[grivera]

Also great to see Paul and Jeff standing behind this build - stand up guys!!

[Va68goat]

cnc,
Yes, this is the same distributor that was used during the dyno.

[cnc]

Wow that's disappointing for quality isn't it.....

[JSPONT]

The second you tube video(the short one) really shows the issue. I have never had a MSD wear out that bad. There was a bunch of bogus MSD stuff a few years back being sold.
Great work Paul, sad to think someone could have slandered your name over an issue that had nothing to do with you. Glad to see that did not happen here.

[craigs69]

I wonder if there in a concentricity issue between the shaft bore and the teeth on the distributor gear. That would take out a soft bronze bushing real fast.

[promptcritical]

Didn’t really wear our did it? Just failed almost immediately like it was manufactured badly. MSD taken over by corporate Holley...

[gtofreek]

I'll take pics of the rest of the engine tomorrow. Yesterday I was tired afterwards[it was past 5PM]and covered in oil during disassembly to take any pics. Good news is crank and everything else looks great. Piston skirts don't look like they've even been run except for a couple very light scratches that are barely even noticeable. Piston pins are free and smooth moving. I still need to disassemble piston pins so I can clean and re-lube before reassembly. I might still have that MSD box at work. I have one I keep instruction for timing curves and extra parts in. I wrote Joe's name on his box when it came to me, so I'll know if the one at work was his or not. If so, I'll look at the origin code in the UPC code to see if it originated from China. Maybe that will shed some light on this. I have used at least a dozen of these distributors in other Pontiac builds and have never had an issue with one. We have used countless MSD distributors on many other brand builds also without any issues what-so-ever. So I was shocked to see this in such a short amount of time. It just sucks that Joe has been without the use of his car for a year because of this. Who would have ever guessed this was the cause. I think the reason why it sounded like it was coming from the torque converter area was because the noise coming from the distributor cap was hitting the firewall and traveling down the tranny tunnel and coming out around the tranny. Very deceiving. It was also loud under the hood and everywhere else too, so sound really travels with these deals. Just glad it didn't cause any other damage to the engine.

[gtofreek]

Originally Posted by craigs69

I wonder if there in a concentricity issue between the shaft bore and the teeth on the distributor gear. That would take out a soft bronze bushing real fast.

The bushing is not bronze. It looks like some kind of powdered iron. It's black. I wonder if it was supposed to be carborized and a batch got through without it because the shaft has literally no wear on it. Only the black coating was shined up. The shaft was straight as can be and the wear on the gear teeth is uniform around the gear so that indicates that it wasn't a gear issue to me. It's just like the bushing was really soft. Heck, I've seen bronze bushings wear the shaft out, and bronze isn't very hard.

[gtofreek]

Originally Posted by promptcritical

Didn’t really wear our did it? Just failed almost immediately like it was manufactured badly. MSD taken over by corporate Holley...

Yes, like it was a bad bushing. I've seen heat treated parts that sat in the heat treat cycle wrong and didn't get hard, so I wonder if there was something like that going on here. Or this thing came from China and is a counterfeit unit as mentioned earlier.

[gtofreek]

One more thing. We were talking to the sales guy at Hylift/Johnson and he told use that there are counterfeit lifters coming here from China that are packaged in boxes that look exactly like theirs. He said the only way you can tell if they are theirs or not is to take them apart and look at the internals. That's why we buy them ONLY direct from Hylift/Johnson. Too easy to be fooled nowadays.

Remember, if the deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

[gtofreek]

Curious Joe, how much did Advanced Auto sell that distributor for?

[craigs69]

Originally Posted by gtofreek

The bushing is not bronze. It looks like some kind of powdered iron. It's black. I wonder if it was supposed to be carborized and a batch got through without it because the shaft has literally no wear on it. Only the black coating was shined up. The shaft was straight as can be and the wear on the gear teeth is uniform around the gear so that indicates that it wasn't a gear issue to me. It's just like the bushing was really soft. Heck, I've seen bronze bushings wear the shaft out, and bronze isn't very hard.

C863 bronze is black. It is a sintered oil impregnated iron/copper product.

[Cliff R]

Wear on the lower bushing should only happen in one place as it's got a helical cut gear on it and the cam is trying to push it away I one direction only.

Wear all the way around without any damage to the shaft tells me it was probably pretty darned loose or the wrong size right to start with as it really can't move around in a circle like that with the cam driving it, unless of course the shaft has a pretty good bend in it someplace.........Cliff

[gtofreek]

Originally Posted by Cliff R

Wear on the lower bushing should only happen in one place as it's got a helical cut gear on it and the cam is trying to push it away I one direction only.

Wear all the way around without any damage to the shaft tells me it was probably pretty darned loose or the wrong size right to start with as it really can't move around in a circle like that with the cam driving it, unless of course the shaft has a pretty good bend in it someplace.........Cliff

I totally disagree with that Cliff. I took this distributor apart when it was new and the bushing was not loose. You have to consider that when this is going bad, that distributor gear is being pushed all around once it gets loose. If the bushing is soft, it's going to wear anywhere the shaft makes contact with it. You can't tell me that the shaft is not dancing around once it starts getting loose. It's going to be trying to get away from the cam gear anyway it can. Especially once the reluctor starts hitting the magnetic pickup. That in itself will try jarring the shaft all over the place.

[gtofreek]

Also, the vast majority of the wear is directly across from the cam gear. Cam is not bent, nor is the wear on the dizzy gear uneven, as stated earlier. I check and straighten, if needed, every cam I install in an engine. You'd be surprised at how many cams are bent to a certain degree right out of the box. Most are .002"-.005" bent, but I have seen as bad as .025", which was unstraightenable, and sent back to manufacturer. I bet most builders never check a cam for straightness, and just assume it is straight. We check, straighten if needed, and polish every cam we use, whether we bought it or the customer did. Not very often are they perfectly straight.

[Va68goat]

Paul,

I guess doing what I did for a living made me a little OCD..Yes, I have pictures of the MSD distributor box when it was mailed to me. I looked at my book of receipts and i saw that I purchased the distributor on March 6, 2017. When I ordered it online from Advance Auto, it was selling for $411.99. I used a gift card and a coupon code and I ended up paying $311.99 (tax included)

[gtofreek]

Joe, in your pics, can you zoom in to see the UPC code. You can tell country of origin from that.

[gtofreek]

Originally Posted by Cliff R

Wear on the lower bushing should only happen in one place as it's got a helical cut gear on it and the cam is trying to push it away I one direction only.

Wear all the way around without any damage to the shaft tells me it was probably pretty darned loose or the wrong size right to start with as it really can't move around in a circle like that with the cam driving it, unless of course the shaft has a pretty good bend in it someplace.........Cliff

Also, when I rebuilt starters for a living, I saw on many occasions where the starter bushings wore out all the way around the shaft, and not just directly across from the ringgear. Once the bushing gets loose, the shaft just starts bouncing all over the place. According to your logic, those bushings would only be worn directly across from the ringgear. Just doesn't work that way.