Reply to "Call for help 1 hour North of the SanFrancisco Bay Area (Santa Rosa)"

I agree about the pan being difficult to clean, and holding onto parts stuck in the nooks and crannies. When I used high pressure water and soap to initially clean the pan, it knocked 3 or 4 more bearing pins out from hiding. I found a couple more after running a magnet around every crevice.

That is why the new finer pickup screen is going into place and staying there. There's just too much at risk. The drawback is I'll have to be careful when the engine is cold, and warm it up REAL good before driving.

Pulled the distributor to fix the sheared pin, and found the advance mechanism is not functioning, sticking badly.

This might explain the erratic idle the car had that I attributed to linkage being affected by heat (expansion and contraction). Idle would stick high, and take a throttle blip to get it to drop. Now though, after seeing how sticky the advance mechanism is (it doesn't spring back) I either need to send the diz off for service or just buy a new one, just another $450 is all.

If I have to buy a new distributor, I can replace with the same Unilite exact replacement, or I could get something else I suppose. I don't want to deal with rewiring, I just want my car back running. Tomorrow I'll call Mallory and see what their turnaround time is on service.

I'd love to go distributorless, or coil-on-plug, but that's another day.