Re: Distributor Question

[jlandry@domain.elided (John A. Landry)]

As the putrid festering facial boil erupted, n9ads@domain.elided (Howard R
Pletcher) yelled:

>My analysis is that looking at the engine from the front, the crank is
>going clockwise and the cam counter-clockwise.  I think distributor has
>to be on the left side of the camshaft, so it's being driven by the
>downward moving side of the cam and the distributor is being pulled down
>into the block.
>
>Is there a prize?   Lots of large, unmarked bills, I hope.

The prize is in the satisfaction of knowing one more small tidbit of IH
information. <grin>

Seriously though, the reason I ask is because I just had a Holley
distributor eat it upper shaft bushing.  I noticed it the day before
yesterday when I started to install the new Pertronix Ignitor I had just
received.  As I started to remove the breaker-points, I noticed the
distributor housing was full of that brownish-black bushing powder.  I knew
something was seriously wrong, so I swapped the distributor out with my
spare.  After removing and disassembling the failed distributor, I
discovered the upper bushing had been shaved right down to the distributor
housing by the spinning action of the shaft and the base which the advance
weights mount to.  The bushing was worn only downward... that is, the shaft
was not loose in the bushing.  There was no obvious defect in the shaft
that would have shaved the bushing like that.  I can only conclude at this
point that some huge force had pulled the shaft downward and into the
bushing *or* the bushing itself was extremely soft.  The fact that I used
the distributor for several months and I don't *think* there was any
bushing wear until very recently.  I had looked inside the distributor
several times and I don't recall seeing any bushing powder... but I might
have missed it.

So I'm now wondering if maybe my oil pump tried to seize up, which would
cause the cam gear to pull down extremely hard on the distributor shaft.
As you may remember Owen Minor had the end of a distributor shaft shear off
in the oil pump on a 392.  I'm on my backup distributor and have been
checking it often.  So far no sign of bushing powder.

Any thoughts?

John
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