Took off the distributor today, it was rattling inside.

Took apart the distributor, and there were a bunch of broken pieces inside, lookes like one big burn spot at one point also. So not sure why it happened or what caused it to blow up.

Does anyone know what the problem might be, i don't want to get another one and have the same thing happen.

Someone else said the camshaft pin could be wrong, i really don't know what that means.

Any opinions would really help me out.

 

There's a pin pressed into the end of the crankshaft that turns the opti. If that pin protrudes too far it applys pressure to the opti and can cause it to crack. Do a search but I believe the correct length is about 0.600" from the surface of the cam.

 

high RPM can also cause rotor failure

 

check your cam and dowel length. Is the opti burned up like it shorted out?? If so, make sure your coil and everything upstream of the opti is in good owrking order.


Brian

 

it almost seems as if it shorted out and had a huge spark inside and then blew into pieces.

opti had about 40k miles on it.

 

i checked the cam pin length, i just went from the base of the pin to the end of the pin and got around .6", im guessing that is below the .62" standard that it should be so im assuming that it wasn't the pin that caused the opti to bust into pieces.

unless i measured the pin wrong, i guess something else caused it to bust, maybe it was its time to go, not sure.

 

did you measure from the face of the cam or the face of the timing sprocket?

 

i measured from where the 3 bolts are, the base of that to the end of the pin.

 

did you take the cam sprocket off? if no, then the pin is too long

 

i think the cam sprocket is still on there, only thing the shop did yesterday was pull off the opti, we didn't take off the 3 bolts underneath.

 

then the pin is too long, somewhere around .200 too long, the .620 spec is from the cam face, so, yours is about the thickness of the cam sprocket too long

 

do you know what length it would be from the cam sprocket face? how thick is the cam sprocket?

and would that be something to blame on the shop for the opti busting?

 

I will need to mic one to get the exact thickness, but IIRC ir is somewhere around .210, I will check tomorrow for you

 

thanks a lot dave, i appreciate it. i might be able to get to the shop sometime tomorrow also and i might be able to check out the thickness.

do i just remove those 3 bolts to take off the cam sprocket? or do i have to take off the timing cover and other things also, i didn't really get a good look at it when i was measuring the pin.

 

need to pull the timing cover