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Thanks again for the help everybody. Another question, after your suggestion I did take a look at my condensers, which I just purchased from Max Merritt and one of them does look suspect, like there is some kind of waxy greasy stuff seeping out of the top. Is there some type of dielectric grease inside of them? Also would a condenser act ok cold until it warmed up then become intermittent sort of like an ignition coil? I did purchase the A869 from Napa and was wondering how do you sneak them into the NE distributor breaker plate?

Thanks again
Mike

Can't help on the mounting issue but the old wax and foil capacitors (condensers) will degrade over time. The old style items have their foil plates separated and insulated by paper surrounded by a dielectric compound which breaks down or dries out.

You may have read that capacitors are the first thing that is usually changed when an old radio is being restored and most of those capacitors are considerably younger than what you are working with. When the wax and paper capacitors (condensers) start drying out they usually change value or outright short. The dielectric may also be composed of some aggressive compounds that will eat away at the cases similar to what an old dry cell battery has done when it starts bulging or leaking at one end. That may be what is happening to your condenser and temperature can very definitely affect all of them -- brand new ones too.

The insulating material around the windings in old coils can be similarly affected as can other parts of various components which is a reason to also avoid many other old NOS electrical items that have spent years on a shelf. Some might have been stored in ideal conditions and still be in reasonably decent shape but others might have been in an environment subjected to extreme heat or cold conditions far out of their design range. Switches are generally OK but might have oxidized contacts and need a cleaning while it is the luck of the draw when trying to use parts like coils and condensers.

Here's how I mount the AL 869 Echlin condensers in my '34 NorthEast distributer. Just use the same threaded hole for attachment that the original NE condensers used and the mounting clip and screw that comes with the new condenser. Ignore the points and their mounting, this photo was taken decades ago when I was toying with adapting later Chrysler points.

As to the original NE condensers you're using, I'd think your chance of getting reliability out of them, even NOS, would at this point in time be very, very small, approaching zero. And yes, impending condenser failure almost always shows up as OK when cold, erratic performance as they warm up.

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