Does this MSD Rotor/Cap/Pickup look okay?

[Mattsvtcobra]

Hey guys. I have another thread going in the Holley tuning section, as I thought my problem was the carb, which it still might be. But I’ve been having some weird symptoms where I think the distributor might be to blame. Let me know your thoughts on these.

[Mattsvtcobra]

First pics

[Mattsvtcobra]

second set

[Mattsvtcobra]

3rd set, last one. Rusty pick up? Is that okay?

[NROTOXIN]

Without any symptoms, conditions stated all I can comment on are your springs. With a light car your advance rate should be pretty fast. This means at least two light blue springs to begin with. If you can get away with it meaning, you have stable timing at idle, you can try one light blue and one light silver.

[NROTOXIN]

The best carb tune up is ignition.

[Mattsvtcobra]

Originally Posted by NROTOXIN

Without any symptoms, conditions stated all I can comment on are your springs. With a light car your advance rate should be pretty fast. This means at least two light blue springs to begin with. If you can get away with it meaning, you have stable timing at idle, you can try one light blue and one light silver.

Here is what I posted last (Holley 770 Questions) in my post that seems to start to narrow down something with the ignition. So I figured the best would be for someone that knows way more than me to look at the rotor/cap/pickup/etc to make sure everything seemed in line.

"So I thought I had it all worked out. 1st ride after some WD-40, the problem was gone and it drove as it should. 2nd ride, it was doing what it was doing before and bogging bad. I took the air cleaner off and repositioned it a bit because its always hit the top of the distrib (working on getting a small riser to get it off of there) as well as opened the cap and closed it and the car ran great on the 3rd run. But any ride after has been where the RPMs climb.

Say I buy lube and not just use WD-40, put the air cleaner on a riser... Is there something I'm missing here?

EDIT: Just got back from a quick ride and the RPM's are not falling or fall slowly. I've tested all throttle linkage while in the garage and everything seems free. While on the ride, I used my big toe and the one next to it to grab the side of the pedal and it seemed to make the RPMs come down like they should.

*The weird thing is that on the past 5 trips when it was running good or bad I noticed one thing. If I felt it was good and the RPMs fell quickly, the car would run really well and responsive with minimal low RPM bog. If I felt it was running not so well and the RPMs would hang, there would be quite a bit more bog at the lower 2k range when I floor it. The engine would run a little more rough it feels and is noticeable in the car. Also, the start up would be almost instant if it was going to run well, and it would take some cycles for it to fire up if it was going to have not a good of a run.*"

[davids2toys]

mine was twice as rusty and ran fine. MSD said it was nothing to worry about. I ordered a new one and finally put it in 2 years later when it failed to start. had fuel but no spark and thru troubleshooting the Magnetic pickup was the culprit. Replaced it with the new one and it ran perfectly.
from my notes: Part # was MSD -84661 and the reluctor gap was .026.
Hope this helps

[S1965C]

I would suggest that you treat mag pickups as a maintenance item, no different than you would have done with an old set of points. I've learned the hard way that mag pickups can and will fail at the most inopportune moments. I even keep a spare in the tool bag now but anytime the plugs, cap and rotor get changed, so does the mag pick-up. Cheap insurance (edit: also make sure that your tool bag has the right extended Allen wrench to R&R it as well).

[Mattsvtcobra]

Originally Posted by S1965C

I would suggest that you treat mag pickups as a maintenance item, no different than you would have done with an old set of points. I've learned the hard way that mag pickups can and will fail at the most inopportune moments. I even keep a spare in the tool bag now but anytime the plugs, cap and rotor get changed, so does the mag pick-up. Cheap insurance (edit: also make sure that your tool bag has the right extended Allen wrench to R&R it as well).

Okay, thank you! I'll order one, but as far as the cap and rotor, do they look good? The middle post and everything else?

[S1965C]

The brass on the cap could benefit from a cleanup with emery cloth or a Dremel tool (using a small drum sander) on a low rpm setting. That will extend its life a little. I would perform the same on the rotor end (the thick end that lights off each cylinder). Any misfiring and you’ll know they need replacing. I’ve seen worse caps and rotors that still managed to work okay.

[Jerry Clayton]

This type dist ( early GM HEI type) uses a shaft that must have the dist drive gear removed to separate the internal/external shafts------WD40 is NOT an adequte lube to properly lube the internal shaft of the advance mechanism-----This ws common symtogh back in the 60-70s on all the GM products--------timing would either resist happening and/or would not retard as RPM went up or down-----

[Mattsvtcobra]

I posted an over all update in Holley 770 Questions but it wasn't until I took off the springs and weights that allowed me to find some rust on the weight posts and in the little bushings. Cleaned up and back in action.

[Dirty Harry]

I had a misfire problem that I was struggling to diagnose. As it turns out, the metal base on my big oval air cleaner had rubbed on one of the wire boots on the distributor cap to the degree that that wire was shorting to ground. The underside of the air cleaner base had a burn mark from where the spark had arced. That's not something you might normally think of, so I pass this on to, hopefully, save someone the difficult diagnostic path I had to take.

[Gaz64]

The rust on the pickup is the microscopic wear dust at the weight pivots. You can see it sprays out inside the bottom of the rotor.
There is a magnet as part of the magnetic pickup, hence the name. Guess where the dust ends up.
Clean it up as you feel, but LUBRICATE the weights with lithium, or a medium weight high melting point grease.
Your cap looks fine, clean it up with a wd40 soaked cloth. Sanding etc only creates larger air gaps.
MSD believes no lubrication other than their dry film is necessary. The rust does not occur if the weights are lubricated in the normal manner.
The same phenomenon occurs at a dry door hinge.

[FredG]

Speaking from experience, the two incidents where my car ran very poorly along with stalling which had all the symptoms of a carb/fuel issue were both caused by MSD ignition issues. One was a bad MSD Blaster coil and the other was a bad magnetic pickup. They drove me crazy. Especially the pickup.

Fred