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I had a curious little problem with my 34 Packard last week which might prove valuable to others with cars where the ignition points are not pre-assembled as a set but rather use a separate base plate and arm.

In anticipation of the upcoming Henry Joy Tour in Mass I decided to pull the distributor, dress and gap the points, and re-synchronize them so both sets of 4-cylinders are timed correctly. The car was running just fine before that - makes me think of the "if it ain't broke....", but the points did need gapping and synchronization. On driving to the show the car ran perfectly below 45-50 mph but above that it developed an erratic miss which I assumed must be ignition related.

Pulled the distributor and rechecked the gap and synchronization, nothing amiss. Using a steady rest I clamped the distributor body in my lathe and chucked the drive end to the lathe chuck. I put an ohmeter across first the first set of points and ran the rpm up, no problems. But when I tested the second set of points, they became erratic at higher rpms. So I had a recalcitrant set of points. Though I didn't measure the point tension, it seemed more than adequate (spec is 20 oz) and more or less the same for both sets. I removed the offending point arm and put a tiny spec of graphite grease on the pivot post and retested - problem apparently solved.

O_D,

Thanks for sharing this experience. Interesting trouble shooting technique with your lathe "distributor tester". Seems all too often it is the little things that can give the most trouble. Binding point set pivot, who would have thunk?

(o[]o)

Thanks, JW. A Sun distributor machine it's not, but it's a helpful diagnositic tool and maybe someone else will benefit from the idea. Here's a snap from a while back while I was working on a 36 Super 8 Delco unit.

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