Distributor Drive Gear/Pinion Installation

[Bookwus]

Hiya All,

I ran across these instruction for installing the distributor drive gear/pinion in a Type 1 engine rebuild......

".....put this gear in before putting the case halves together. To do this, install the gear into the case with the two shims. Then install the distributor and bolt it down. Press up on the distributor drive gear and measure the endplay. You should have around .010" of play. If you have a lot more than that, add some shims until you get close. Once you've done that, align the clips of the distributor parallel to the cylinder and tighten your pinch clamp so the body of the distributor doesn't move. Now point the rotor of the distributor to the hash mark on the distributor body where the #1 cylinder would fire. Don't move anything from this point. Grab your crank by the #1 rod and set it down in the case and you will be in time."

Anybody out there accomplished the job in this manner?

[Amskeptic]

Hiya All,

I ran across these instruction for installing the distributor drive gear/pinion in a Type 1 engine rebuild......

".....put this gear in before putting the case halves together. To do this, install the gear into the case with the two shims. Then install the distributor and bolt it down. Press up on the distributor drive gear and measure the endplay. You should have around .010" of play. If you have a lot more than that, add some shims until you get close. Once you've done that, align the clips of the distributor parallel to the cylinder and tighten your pinch clamp so the body of the distributor doesn't move. Now point the rotor of the distributor to the hash mark on the distributor body where the #1 cylinder would fire. Don't move anything from this point. Grab your crank by the #1 rod and set it down in the case and you will be in time."

Anybody out there accomplished the job in this manner?

That looks like a derivitive of the Tom Wilson method. The only point of contention I might come up with is the difference between 009 and stock distributors. With stock distributors, the vacuum can determines the position of the outer distributor body. As a general rule, the #1 hash mark will face 4:00PM if 12 faces directly forward towards the flywheel.
Colin

[hambone]

I had the crank seated first, with #1 rod fully extended. Then I slipped in the drive pinion with the slot perpendicular to the case, which also put the dist. vacuum can at 8 o'clock.
Pinion endplay was set before the crank was installed.
After repeated tries of course!

[Bookwus]

Hiya Bob,

I had the crank seated first, with #1 rod fully extended.....

Indeed, that's how I went about it also. The business about seating the crank afterward and the clips on the distributor is new to me. Sounds plausible and possible, just new to me.

I thought I might give it a try on the engine I'm building right now.