[Sun Tuned]

Happy Fathers Day you guys!

Man lets talk about this, I'm tired of looking at HEI's anyhow.

I meant to go back through and find who asked about the Gitz oiler, but I didn't see it again. Several posts working on the distributor subject and I guess I got lost in the wash.

Lets kinda start in the future and work backward for a minute. Everyone knows how I pitch fits about no grease in the grease well of these offshore and reman distributors. Most have seen the deal, 5 cavity chambers (what I call a well of sorts) arranged around and designed to lube and also support the top bushing. Bushing has two 1/16 " holes to wick base oil out of grease and lube top bushing and shaft. Fairly simple straightforward deal, until someone leaves the grease out and then im gonna get pissed, and sooner or later the top bushing and the shaft will do the same.

That engineering marvel of how to lube the top bushing wasnt always that way. On a Pontiac or a Buick, which have the shortest housings, youd think engine oil would just migrate up the shaft a bit and be of no concern, but it doesnt quite work like that. And on Mr. Chevrolet, your miles from getting that done (longest housing of them all). Oh, I guess we could machine some sprial grooves on the shaft and guide it up there( Ford actually did this in 70's with pretty good success), but thats not really a good deal either. Engineers do stuff just because it is what they do ya know. They found out in GM's case they didnt really want to back all that oil up there and then have to design a means to get it back at a slightly faster rate than it arrived. They figured as parts wear, and no one would change oil quite on schedule, and as things get clogged up a bit, it might just push oil out the top and into the distributor making for a hell of a mess (again Ford even figured out how to control the mess in their deal and simply drilled a hole in bottom of distributor housing to let the leaky oil get out. Yep, on top of engine I suppose. But it didnt prove to be much problem anyhow. Maybe they did have a Better Idea??) . Gm revisited this idea Im told in the 80's and found their initial observations were proven true many years later on the second visitation of this idea. In addition with added incorporation of PCV they were concerned this method would work like a texas oil rig when conditions werent perfect so they nixxed it after piddling with it in production on a few numbered shaft assemblies.

Moving back to the 40's and 50's, gave us some of the most eye appealing stuff ever to grace the underhood of a car in my opinion. The Pontiac and other GM distributors we had in the mid to late 50's were simply wonderful works of art by some very talented engineers. More on this to come later today and all about that brilliant GITZ oiler....

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by b-man

Here's a 1959 distributor (1110943) with the oiling cup, so Pontiac was equipping them this way at least through the '50s and possibly into the early '60s.

Good info, thanks B-man

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by Sun Tuned

Happy Fathers Day you guys!

Man lets talk about this, I'm tired of looking at HEI's anyhow.

I meant to go back through and find who asked about the Gitz oiler, but I didn't see it again. Several posts working on the distributor subject and I guess I got lost in the wash.

Lets kinda start in the future and work backward for a minute. Everyone knows how I pitch fits about no grease in the grease well of these offshore and reman distributors. Most have seen the deal, 5 cavity chambers (what I call a well of sorts) arranged around and designed to lube and also support the top bushing. Bushing has two 1/16 " holes to wick base oil out of grease and lube top bushing and shaft. Fairly simple straightforward deal, until someone leaves the grease out and then im gonna get pissed, and sooner or later the top bushing and the shaft will do the same.

That engineering marvel of how to lube the top bushing wasnt always that way. On a Pontiac or a Buick, which have the shortest housings, youd think engine oil would just migrate up the shaft a bit and be of no concern, but it doesnt quite work like that. And on Mr. Chevrolet, your miles from getting that done (longest housing of them all). Oh, I guess we could machine some sprial grooves on the shaft and guide it up there( Ford actually did this in 70's with pretty good success), but thats not really a good deal either. Engineers do stuff just because it is what they do ya know. They found out in GM's case they didnt really want to back all that oil up there and then have to design a means to get it back at a slightly faster rate than it arrived. They figured as parts wear, and no one would change oil quite on schedule, and as things get clogged up a bit, it might just push oil out the top and into the distributor making for a hell of a mess (again Ford even figured out how to control the mess in their deal and simply drilled a hole in bottom of distributor housing to let the leaky oil get out. Yep, on top of engine I suppose. But it didnt prove to be much problem anyhow. Maybe they did have a Better Idea??) . Gm revisited this idea Im told in the 80's and found their initial observations were proven true many years later on the second visitation of this idea. In addition with added incorporation of PCV they were concerned this method would work like a texas oil rig when conditions werent perfect so they nixxed it after piddling with it in production on a few numbered shaft assemblies.

Moving back to the 40's and 50's, gave us some of the most eye appealing stuff ever to grace the underhood of a car in my opinion. The Pontiac and other GM distributors we had in the mid to late 50's were simply wonderful works of art by some very talented engineers. More on this to come later today and all about that brilliant GITZ oiler....

I'm the one that mentioned the oiler and the fact that I like that feature. I have a few cast iron spares here with the oiler, and run one in one of the cars.

[pfilean]

Bart,I know 61 pass cars did not have the oiling tube.The SD dual point does.Tom

I have a June built 61 single point with the tube. Put a few drops in it every year. As for 62 - I don't know. Where are you Engineer-ear?

[tom s]

My 62 does not have it and the only 61 I owned was a Ventura and it did not have it but I never checked to see if it was original.My 62 is.Tom

[b-man]

Here's another example of an older GM iron distributor with the oiling cup, this time a Canadian Pontiac (SBC) unit.

[tom s]

Both of the SD dual points I own and everyone before has had it.Tom

[Sun Tuned]

So these early distributors had the oiler tubes on them. I think various Pontiacs from 55 till 62 had them, some didnt and some were what I call the conventional type with the weights above the point plate (like the one in Barts pic above), and a few others were what I call the "bowl" type like the early Super Duty models TomS spoke of.

I really prefer these type myself. They originally cast the housings and machined them and bushings were pressed in and then there was a "boss" on the side of the distributor for the oiler tube. That passage was then drilled and tapped for the tube. As the initial passage was drilled, the engineers worked it out whereby the drill just broke through and created an oblong hole that breached the outer wall of one side of the bushing. Then the final machining operation was done that sized the inside diameter of the top/bottom bushings. The neat thing about these distributors is they do not have the cast "well" which eventually was incorporated for the grease that latter units had. Instead they tapped the hole for the GITZ oiler tube on the outside of the housing. Next inside the tubes was placed a cotton/wool felt wick. This wick installed in the just bored hole for the oiler tube and went just inside of the oval hole the drill bit bored into the side of the top bushing. The wick extended out from the housing roughly halfway up the inside of the tube. Looking down the top bushing bore like a gun barrel you could easily see on one side of the bushing this felt wick protruding about half its diameter inside one side of the bushing. Now in operation you were to oil this tube and then the oil saturated (wicked along the full length of the felt wick by saturation) the felt wick and provided a direct and constant lubrication means for the bushing and shaft. All that was required was every 2000 miles one needed to add 3-5 drops of light machine oil (engine oil worked fine) under the oiler cap. Early on it was assumed that oil changes were performed roughly every 2000 miles, remember some of the early cars did not even have an oil filter yet. Or periodically when the service station attendant checked oil and fluids this oiler was checked on also. Sounds like a pain in the butt, but really they were never any trouble at all. Wonderful way to lube top bushing.

Now as youll get folks saying they hate adjusting points, so too will you probably hear the critics of this design whine about "one more thing to have to keep up with". Well maybe, but this was an easy service deal. Did it work? you betcha! like 5 million bucks. But there were extra parts to be manufactured and then there were people who never added oil like they were supposed to , but still a good design. However the bean counters got involved and then the little oilers had to go away. Thats when the grease well came into vogue. When they started that deal the grease they installed wasnt grease, it was actually packed sawdust soaked in oil with the plastic seal pushed over the deal to keep out dust??? LOL or rather foreign material. Later as they progressed into about 1964-1965 the sawdust went away and they began actual grease as we know it.

I actually have a 454 Chevy in my old crew cab that it came with in 1989, Ive played with a few distributor designs in it over the years but stupid as it may sound the one i have in there now is my HEI guts inside of an old 58 Chevy iron case oiler tube distributor. Stone age as hell it may look but I like it and it just flat works, plus I get some of the strangest looks when people look off in there and realize it looks like I have a points distributor in there. It might look like one but it doesnt look familiar under the cap.

[Tom Vaught]

Originally Posted by Sun Tuned

I actually have a 454 Chevy in my old crew cab that it came with in 1989, Ive played with a few distributor designs in it over the years but stupid as it may sound the one i have in there now is my HEI guts inside of an old 58 Chevy iron case oiler tube distributor. Stone age as hell it may look but I like it and it just flat works, plus I get some of the strangest looks when people look off in there and realize it looks like I have a points distributor in there. It might look like one but it doesn't look familiar under the cap.

Nothing wrong with that deal, Mr Sun Tuned.
I read all the time about people in Street Rodder Magazine making a LS engine look like a 1953 Olds engine and getting all of these awards because it looks cool BUT you could drive it from New York to San Francisco with no worries.

Tom V.

[Formulajones]

On the distributor oiler deal, I just put a few drops in every oil change. Not a big deal.

Frankly, I prefer to have a car where things are serviceable like that. Wheel bearings are another one. New cars now have sealed hubs, can't pack bearings, so you just wait for them to fail and replace.....brilliant.

Most of your ball joints on many new cars don't even have grease fittings