[DeTomaso] Weirdness with my Cleveland ...

Wed Jul 9 01:26:13 EDT 2008

Yep ... it was the pin. Thanks to Jake and Mike for being so quick to
respond - and to Doug for popping over!

Given that this seems to be a common "weak link" (I have a Motorcraft
distributor converted to work with my MSD ignition system), I am now
thinking it's time to upgrade.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I just sussed the summitracing.com
site and see that several options are available. I need a new
distributor with vacuum advance, adaptable to my MSD and has no
clearance problems.

Thanks in advance ...

-----Original Message-----
From: detomaso-bounces at realbig.com [mailto:detomaso-bounces at realbig.com]
On Behalf Of Erik Anderson
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 5:48 PM
To: msm at portata.com; JDeRyke at aol.com; detomaso at realbig.com
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Weirdness with my Cleveland ...

Correct. It looks like pin is broken in half. I'm going to pull the
distributor right out now ... 

Stay tuned!

----- Original Message -----
From: msm at portata.com <msm at portata.com>
To: JDeRyke at aol.com <JDeRyke at aol.com>; Erik Anderson;
detomaso at realbig.com <detomaso at realbig.com>
Sent: Tue Jul 08 17:50:40 2008
Subject: RE: [DeTomaso] Weirdness with my Cleveland ...

We are all assuming that by "won't start" you means that the starter
cranks the engine over but that it just does not catch, right?

________________________________

From: detomaso-bounces at realbig.com on behalf of JDeRyke at aol.com
Sent: Tue 7/8/2008 3:51 PM
To: eanderson at geotracinternational.com; detomaso at realbig.com
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Weirdness with my Cleveland ...

In a message dated 7/8/08 3:41:23 PM, eanderson at geotracinternational.com
writes:

> I got about half a block and felt the power drop bigtime.  Just as she
> stalled she let out a huge backfire!  My cat has NEVER backfired
before - so I'm
> not sure if that has something to do with the problem or not. That
said, the
> car won't start since this happened .
>
Pull the distributor. Look through the hole in the distributor drive
gear.
There should be a roll pin in there. Yours is probably a spring pin made
of many
coils of thin sheet steel. It is likely broken or at least cracked. A
real
roll pin will cost around 15 cents and will have a single sheet of much
thicker
steel with a slot down the side. For ultimate protection, slip a second
smaller roll pin inside the first. Retime the engine and you're ready to
go.
If the drive pin seems unbroken when you drive it out with a punch to
verify,
the only other possibility is a slipped cam chain, and for this, the
rear
upholstery panel, the steel access door, the water pump and harmonic
balancer
must come off. Badly worn cam chains can jump off the sprocket teeth,
mistiming
the cam; replace the chain and both sprockets for best results. All this
can be
done with the engine in place, incidently. Good luck- J Deryke

**************

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