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Re: Mallory failure alert

To: henry@henryfrye.com
Subject: Re: Mallory failure alert
From: "Joe Boruch" <jaboruch@netzero.net>
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 21:16:53 GMT
The same thing happened to me about 5 years ago.  I sent it back to mallory and 
they replaced it for FREE.  You may want to try them.  

The latest problem that I had with my Mallory dizzey is that they advance 
weights were coming out and rubbing on the inside of the housing and actually 
cut a groove in it.  I have found out from my machine shop that this is a 
fairly common problem (aside from junk condensors and weak point springs).  The 
rubbing caused the dizzy to retard, so the car ran like crap and the EGT's 
climbed as more of the charge was burning in the header.  I went from setting 
the fastest lap of the race on the 3rd lap to running some of the slowest for 
the remaining 17 laps.  I still, however, was not last in class. 

Instead of the tab that breaks off the new plates hit the plate as a stop.  
After a while the parts wear and get dented and allow the weights to come out 
more and eventually hit the sides.   Keep checking things for movement and 
wear, so this does not happen to you.  Joe(B)


-- Henry Frye <henry@henryfrye.com> wrote:
I had an interesting failure at the Glen. My Mallory Dual Point dizzy 
suddenly was giving me waaaay to much advance. EGT's spiked and water temp 
ran hotter than normal. I reset the timing and the mark bounced quite a bit 
more than it should.

I wanted to adjust the total (mechanical) advance the dizzy would throw. In 
the Mallory, it is done by bending a little tab under the points plate. I 
always thought this was rather crude. I had never adjusted the tab on this 
distributor, as it came out of a parts car and was, I thought, brand new.

Much to my surprise, the tab was broken off and laying in the bottom of the 
dizzy shell. The faster I reved, the more advance I got, up to the limit of 
the springs. No mechanical stop on the advance at all. Scary.

I had my original Mallory in the trailer, so I swapped the points and 
condenser and dropped it in. All was right again...

For under $50, a kit can be purchased from Mallory consisting of two plates 
with setscrews to make this adjustment and lock it down. I'll be buying two 
such kits.

Cheers

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