[Healeys] Distributors - 67 BJ8

[Jonas Payne]

Over the past few weeks, we had a TR6 in the shop that had been suffering from
a "stutter" at throttle tip in for about a year.  Suddenly (literally
overnight), the car was un-drivable, shaking, bucking and not making any power
at all.

We did an ignition tune up at the cost of $80  (cap, points, test coil, wires,
plugs), no improvement.  (Parts needed replacement anyway) Vacuum check,
nothing, carb check, nothing....................absolutely stumped.

After removal and replacement of the dist (for no other reason than "why
not")., you could literally move the dist. shaft enough that when the points
were open at one point in the rotation, it would close the points. Turns out
the upper bushing on the dist was severely worn, causing the timing to jump as
much as 20 degrees,  which we discovered while doing a much more exhaustive
timing check.  Apparently the eccentric wear on the bushing finally got to a
point where the shaft was "dropping into a hole" on side loading from the cam.
None of this was evident at first glance or would have been obvious if you
hadn't been looking for it.

This was a very well maintained 65k mile car.

It now pulls like a freight train and is as smooth as silk - cost of
distributor rebuild - $40.

Jonas Payne
PBR
Cell:   (702) 358-5084