[Formulajones]

Paul mentioned he's used MSD for many years in various types of engine builds and he's never seen this issue. I've used MSD quite a bit, not as much as Paul, but I have never seen this either. Can't ignore the millions of MSD products in service either, especially places like NHRA, so you'd think if there was a problem it would be more common or wide spread.

Like Paul, I'm just as interested in the UPC code.

[tom s]

I don’t have a clue and really don’t care except for having this thread go away!Sure Paul feels the same.Tom

[grivera]

Originally Posted by tom s

I don’t have a clue and really don’t care except for having this thread go away!Sure Paul feels the same.Tom

Paul AND Joe - he hasn't been able to enjoy this build/car

[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.

[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.

[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.

[STEELCITYFIREBIRD]

....I’d want nothing to do with that dizzy myself.

I’ve seen high mileage units worn heavy in one spot on the lower bushing like that. With the run time you have, I’d eliminate the possibility of a problem housing.

Any interference dist cap to rotor?

( I spent some time this weekend swapping out dizzy gears and locking out advance on two MSD pro billets, SBC, now I’m going to go back and scrutinize them both a little more before installing, both are used but one has VERY little time on it. It Had to go back to MSD, rotor phasing was off, enough to cause cross firing, with mechanical advance functional )

[gtofreek]

Well, I found the problem almost right away. I continued on to disassemble the entire engine just to put my mind at ease. This has been driving Joe and myself out of our minds trying to figure this out. I started by turning the engine over as it was and listened. Every now and then, with no rhyme or reason, I would hear an unusual click noise. Almost sound like the oil pump drive shaft dropping 1/4" inch and hitting the pan. Something to that sort, or maybe the sound you might hear if there were no rockers hooked up to the lifters and the lifter didn't stay in contact with the cam lobe and then dropped and hit it. Something like that. So I pulled the intake and valley pan off to take a look. Also the valve covers. I saw nothing unusual. Everything looked fine and normal. So I turned the engine over some more, and every now and then it would make this click noise, but without rhyme or reason. It just did it when it wanted. Sometimes I turned the engine over 4-5 times before it would do it, sometime 2. But it sure sounded like it was coming from the distributor area. So I look at the distributor to see if there was a gap between the reluctor, and the magnetic pickup. There was what looked to be about a .030" gap. So I turned the engine over and watched it. There was always a gap but the gap changed slightly as it turned around. I attributed it to the reluctor paddles not being exactly the same length. So not seeing anything there, I pulled the distributor to take a closer look. Spun it by hand and the gap looked about the same as it did in the engine. I turn the distributor on it's side, and now that the reluctor is not shadowed by the rotor, I can see it paddles were shiny on the top 1/8" or so. So I look back at the reluctor to pickup gap and the reluctor is touching it! Turns out the lower bushing of this new distributor is extremely wore out in less than 200 miles. Really after a few dyno pulls. I took some not so great videos with my camera phone with a scratched lens but you should get the picture. I figure the uneven load of the oil pump is making this gear jump all over the place and randomly hitting the magnetic pickup. There is no wear whatsoever in the shaft. Just the black oxide coating has been rubbed shiny. It's like this bushing is extremely soft. It's not bronze. It looks like some sort of iron, that may not have been carborized? The composite distributor gear has some minor wear to the top 1/4 inch that was taking all the load but otherwise it looks great, considering. Says something about those gears. I'd say it has about .005" wear on it. Just barely enough to try to catch a fingernail on. The cam to dizzy gear contact pattern looks perfectly centered to, with about 3/4 tooth engagement. I could find no other reason for the bushing to wear like that as it was not like that when I pulled it apart to change the gear, and re-curve it. I've seen bronze bushings wear the shaft of the distributor pretty severely yet this shaft has no wear that can be felt, it's perfectly smooth. We checked the shaft to see if it was bent, but it was real straight. Also the wear on the teeth of the dizzy gear was even all the way around the gear.

Has anyone had an MSD dizzy gear wear out this fast? I'm wondering if they got a bad batch of hardened bushings.

BTW, the piston skirts look beautiful! Also, I stand corrected, the piston skirts had .0047" clearance!
Here is a link to some videos on youtube. The second video is the best.
https://youtu.be/0QOwVaJcQ_Q
https://youtu.be/soh91OYexBM

[Joe's Garage]

I heard a rumor maybe six months ago from two different sources that there was a bunch of COUNTERFEIT MSD stuff hitting the streets.

Can't remember now who said it - it might even have been here on PY.

It was said that the counterfeit MSD stuff was visually dead-nuts-on.........

Damn communists.....

[pastry_chef]

Originally Posted by Joe's Garage

COUNTERFEIT MSD stuff hitting the streets.

A big reason to buy from a mainstream source, like Summit.

[shaker455]

Great Detective work Paul!

[grivera]

This is awesome news!! Nice job Paul - and good for you Joe.

[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!!

[cnc]

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

[Va68goat]

1968GTO421,

I'm going to be guided by what Paul suggests. I think we want to confirm that this isn't some "knock off MSD" distributor. I would hate to have to buy another one but I'm so deep into thismotor that I think I would have to. Paul is going to check out the distributor and give his best assessment and I'll go from there. I trust him 100%.

Formulajones,
We checked the distributor but only for play up and down. It never came to anyone to check for lateral play. Believe me, I wish we would have.

dataway,
Your file analysis was a huge help. I think a lot of guys were stumped with this one. Thank you again for taking the time to do that. I really do appreciate that!

[promptcritical]

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

[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.

[gtospieg]

glad to see the mystery solved...been following this for a looong time