Weak spark?

My experience with Ford Duraspark modules has been when they fail they (1) die once and for all, or (2) die, cool off & work again until they get hot, then die again, cool off etc etc.

If the electric to your ignition is supplied via the ignition switch, my guess is you have an excessive voltage drop through the switch. Get a long jumper wire with alligator clips on both ends and jumper straight between the battery & the ignition, see if things don't improve.

cowboy from hell

Well George, My weak spark turned out to be a sheared distributor gear (not pin). 3 teeth sheared. I will now examine the cam gear for damage and stick a magnet down there to try and pick up any bits. I will also change the oil when I get it up to temperature.

Dont know why this has happened as I am running a normal flat tappet hydraulic cam. Maybe the gears on the Echlin stuff are made of cheap iron?

The distributor gear was the first place I looked when the car stopped. It was turning when I cranked the engine, and I was not able to turn the rotor arm with my hand, so I dismissed it. There must have been just enough teeth left on the gear to turn it.

Johnny

Oh man, Johnny, sorry to read that my friend. Was the distributor and/or gear something recently installed? Was the gear bronze?

cowboy from hell

Johnny

6476 had the same problem and I giot stuck in the center of one of the busiest exits during rush hour in new york .. when it happened lucky i didnt smoke cause I would have thrown a match in it and called it a day .. but the pantera god sent a big flat bed ...

anyway it chipped my cam. the motor had to come out ... a small piece of permatex had made its way into the oil pump and jammed the pump causing this chaim reaction. some one did a no n and put permatex pipe compound inside the female thread .. and it jamped the pump.

Well hope your more lucky then me.

Ron

Gerorge/ Ron,

The failed distributor has been in the car for 15000 miles. I bought it new from Napa (Echlin) and installed a roll pin inside the existing roll pin before I ever put it in the car. I wonder if I had not put he second roll pin in there if the pin would have broken before the gear?
When I built the engine I installed a Ford Motorsport oil pump drive and normal oil pump, not high volume.
Anyway, I have got a Mallory gear that I pressed on last night. I still intend to use 2 roll pins.

I did a retrospective search on this forum last night and found quite a lot of information on this subject. I am hoping my failure was just down to the cheap Echlin gear.

Now I have to drop the sump and clean it out, dammit.
The distributor drive seems to be the weak link in these engines. Is this just a Ford thing, or do all American push rod motors suffer this Problem?


Johnny

Johnny,

replacing the driveshaft is mostly a racer thing, I think the Ford guys believe at high rpm if the pump passes debris the shaft would twist so much it would snap in two. The heavy duty drive shaft in turn necessitates the double roll pin, because now the shaft has no give at all and the roll pin becomes the weak link. I've installed heavy duty shafts & double roll pins in Fords since the '60s, never had any worries afterwards.

If a person intends to keep the revs below 6000 rpm, I'm sure the stock drive shaft will work just fine, I've pulled apart a lot of high mileage motors and never found a snapped drive shaft, but I have found some that had more than one complete twist in it. Looked like a peppermint stick.

The gear problem is something entirely new. Hard for me to say when it exactly started, or what caused it, but it is either the cheap parts coming from China (my pick for most likely), or the lack of ZDDP in the oil, or a combination of the two. Your distributor is old enough that it would be hard to blame it on Chinese parts, so in this case, could it be the lack of ZDDP?

I don't know if other brands are having the same problems with drive gears as I haven't kept up with the Chevy or Mopar scene in 15 years. Some of the other guys will know. I do know everybody is having problems with cam lobe/lifter wear due to the lack of ZDDP.

I know you're pissed my friend, I don't blame you. If I were there I'd crawl under the car & help you pull that pan.

George

Johnny / George

My thought is that the stock pin and shaft are a week link to prevent breaking the gear and chipping the cam ... after market stuff would be strong enough for the pump to possibly pass a small piece of gasket or a piece of PERMATEX ?? LOL

As George says the OIL has some thing to do with it .. my thought was that my little piece of compound happened to break off after I changed to synthetic oil ???

Anyway when you pull the pan and open the oil pump ... that should tell the tale.

Ron

I have had problems with the gear teeth on the Comp Cams camshafts.
Chunks break off for no reason.
I think that everyone is better off with a bronze distributor gear on the distributor.

Comp Cams says that this doesn't happen but it has already happened to me.

It could be the quality of the cam blanks or it could be something simple like the lack of sufficeient zinc in the oil.

STP "Blue" has the zinc in it. Use it. You would safety wire your ring bolts in the ZF right? Well this stuff is even cheaper then that. Very cheap insurance.

Thanks for the offer of help to pull the pan George. I will buy you a free beer in Vegas.

I am ashamed to say that I didn't pull the pan. I don't have a removable cross member (poor excuse I know, considering I'm a metal man) I drained the oil, changed the filter and stuck some very powerful magnets on the bottom of the baffle sump and covered them with duct tape. These will stay there until I next pull the pan.
I installed the new distributor after applying molly cam lube onto both gears with a brush, timed it up, drove the car and it all seems fine.

I am taking a risk, I know that. Thank you all for your help on this subject.

Johnny