Bob,
You are right about the damaged distributors. I've done it, but it took me
35 years to break it, and I really needed a new one anyway! You are a far
more careful person than I am.
I think you could use a "crow's foot" wrench to get at those bolts. This
isn't the right set, I'm just providing an example, but Sears sells one that
is inch calibrated:
http://tinyurl.com/7equ3
Since I installed a Pertronix ignition system years ago, I too use the
adjustment knob to set my timing. Now it's for "knock tuning" to the grade
of gas I am willing to pay for (I want to get every penny's worth of energy
out of it, and I've found the timing is very stable without points.) I read
somewhere that that is what it was designed for. It allowed you to adjust
for the varying octane rating of gas while traveling in "mid century" Europe
without using any tools.
Stuart
P.S.: Did you figure out the problem with the '72 GT?
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Howard [mailto:mgbob@juno.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 30, 2005 4:02 PM
To: macgroup@comcast.net
Cc: mgs@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Starting problem
The point of all this is that the distributor should be set into the
clamp plate once, then adjustments made of the vernier or the plate
itself, as this procedure minimises wear on the soft metal base of the
distributor.
Section B.5 of the workshop manual describes R&R of the distributor
with clamp plate attached. That, plus having seen many damaged
distributors with wear on the clamping area, causes me to suggest minimal
use of the clamp bolt itself. I maintain that the single bolt is not for
repeated use when setting timing.
Bob
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