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It looks like I’ll have to take out the distributor whether I want to or not as I just discovered that it turns by hand. I had cranked it to point forward but now I have no idea where it is actually pointing!

The distributor is all disconnected, the hold-down clamp removed and ready to pull out except that it won’t budge! I even tried a long pry bar but no hint of movement. It does have only one clamp, doesn’t it?

UDATE: It is turning freely now but won’t pull out even a tiny amount. Looking at the spare that I have, I see nothing that could have broken, such as a cross-pin, that would be holding it.

I left the distributor soaking in PBlaster, then closed up the shop for the night as a big storm is moving in. I finally got it to move vertically but only a tiny amount. If I can get it to move a little more, maybe I can get a brake adjuster tool under it to move it more but right now there isn't enough on a space for that.

Tomorrow will be my last day to work as the insulation is being put in the last section on Monday which will make the shop inaccessible as the stuff is toxic. The guys doing it wear hazmat suits! Tuesday will be moving some things back over into the freshly-insulated area including an Imperial on dollies so that I can get the two cars currently outside back inside before I leave on Wednesday.

I was out the shop today for only a short while to make one final attempt at removing the distributor, to no success. One thing I noticed is that when I try to lift it the little amount that it will move vertically (about 1/16”), the cam shaft does not move with it. That makes me think that it is somehow stuck at the gear but with the cam able to turn a quarter turn by hand, I can’t tell what’s happening. Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated!

So that failing, I started taking it apart in place and noticed that the points pivot pin is very loose. If it’s like other distributors I’ve worked on, it’s swaged in place on the back side but I couldn’t get out the plate to see what’s going on underneath. For the sake of a photo, here’s were it is right now.

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Don, there is coverage in either the shop manual or service literature on difficulties in removing the distributor and as I recall an illustrated method is show. I used an impact fork and some gentle persuasion to get mine out, the cause was sludge or corrosion accumulated up top where it enters the block.

Thank you, Dave. I tried to look in the manual while at the shop but so poor of Internet that I gave up.

The distributor is completely free in the block but won’t budge upward more that 1/16” and when it does, the shaft does not lift with it.

I have found them to rotate easily but not lift as you have.
Use a block of wood as a fulcrum and get a 4-5 foot pry bar & give 'er!
It will come right out.
Do not go gentle into that good distributor!

That’s exactly what I tried today but got nowhere other than to shear off a spark plug wire! I didn’t see it and it got pinched but fortunately I have a new set. I’ll try again if I have time before I leave but otherwise it may have to wait until the next time I’m here.

It appears that I'll have some time tomorrow after all to work on the distributor as the insulation is done (yay!) and the two cars that the work displaced to the cold outdoors are back inside. Of course, everything else in the shop is still compressed into two-thirds of it so it's a bit tight moving around and I don't want to start re-organizing it all until the strand board has been put up in this last section while it's empty.

On the distributor, what holds the backing plate in once everything on it has been removed? I can move it about but it does not want to lift out as I expected it would.

I managed to get the distributor's backing plate out and see that there is nothing wrong with the cam or shaft. It's been many years since I've working on a distributor and had forgotten that the cam has a flange on it which sits over two stubby pins on the centrifugal advance arms and it had lifted off of them.

The distributor itself is till stuck and I have no way to slam-hammer it out. Even if I could attach the hammer to it, mine is too long. I have a couple months now to think about it as the shop is all closed up until next time.