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I am rebuilding the Delco-Remy distributor as mentioned above. I'm not sure about the vacuum advance that on it.
I am planning to lightly media blast it to clean it up. Of course, I'll cover up all the openings before blasting. I have removed the internal spring and cleaned it up.

I am assuming since it's controlled by vacuum, that there is a diaphragm inside. Would it still be any good after all these years? This does not appear to be a part that can be disassembled entirely without destroying something.

How long the original diaphragm remains functional depends on many things, but failures, even among NOS units, is common enough. Fortunately there are services available to install replacement diaphragms.

If you have have one of those mitivac vacuum/brake bleeder, you can use it to test your vac advance. Mine was good and it was it the car when I got it, and the car sat out in the desert heat for 20 years before I got it.

Alternatively, you can just use your mouth and draw a vacuum on the unit and see if it will hold the vacuum or not.

A bad distributor vacuum modulator can deal out problems with overheating and poor performance. Personally, I would opt for a newly rebuilt modulator. JWL

Tested the vacuum on the Vacuum Advance today and it failed.

I contacted one place I found online about rebuilding it but they wanted $125 to rebuild it. I just called Kanters and ordered one from them. After I return the Core it will only be $85. I have to stop overthinking every part I come to.

Tomorrow is the 5th Anniversary of my purchase of this beast.

I received a facebook query yesterday from one of our members asking about the Watts link on the rear end. The query reminded me that mine is still hanging uselessly under the car.

Since reconnecting it is near the top of my to-do-list I crawled under there and got started yesterday. It took me about 45 minutes but using a chain and floor jack I was able to get it reconnected.

The hardest part is not the jack, chain or the pressure against the axle. The hardest part is the thickness of the new rubber bushings and trying to get enough thread to get the washer and nut back in place.

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The new vacuum advance (VacAd) arrived from Kantors this week but the internal threads of the spring cap would not receive the brass fitting that was in the original VacAd.

The threads were different. The brass fitting was pipe threads and the new cap was not. I was starting to believe that the brass fitting was not original but then I saw a image on Henry's blog and he had the exact same brass fitting so now I think it is original.

At some point, I accidentally discovered that the two spring caps were interchangeable with each other so I left them that way. Will send the core back to Kantor's with the new cap and I will keep the old one. They are fabricated slightly different as seen in the first image but hopefully will work as it should.

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Believe the important part is make sure the depth of the spring cavity is the same with both pieces when screwed together. The spring tension as adjusted with different springs or adding - subtracting shims determines or changes the advance curve.

I checked it all out after you wrote that.
The caps are the same depth.
The cavity of the new advance is about a 16th deeper.
The spring of the new advance is much shorter but also stronger than the older advance.



Also, I picked up a new Rotor and Distro Cap at NAPA this morning. I used the part numbers from the Parts X-Ref page (AL-65 & AL-99) but neither fit.