please help i have a 64 ford running a 351 w ive had it running for about 2 weeks drove it local it ran ok had a miss about 3500 but it ran good just cruising around. i drove to to bristol about 20 miles from the house it ran fine there but when i got ready to leave the car missed and would spit and sputter bad so i had to have it towed when i got home i noticed the carbon pice that makes contact with the rotor was broken (the dist is a mallory duel point its brand new ) and it was real black around the cap and rotor. i replaced the cap and rotor reset the points it still wont run it just spits and sputters i even tried a differnt carb still the same thing its getting plenty of fuel so i dont know what else to look for. could it be a bad dist.??? im at my end with this thing i emailed mallory 3 days ago no responce, does anyone know any thing else too look for im 90% sure its somthing in the fire .........help
It could be the coil or condenser too. Also, if you didn't use a ballast resistor you may have already burned up the points. Have you checked the dwell after you regapped the points?
You did properly gap both sets of points? That is set the gap on each set with the rubbing block on a high point of the distributor cam. That is usually the mistake I see with guys installing a set of points. also make sure that the wires/connections going to the points are connected correctly.
I had one, get rid of it it is nothing but trouble. would run good until one of the points would start to burn and then that throws the timing off. go with a pentax I think it is, it replaces the points in an old ford distributor or go with a ford electronic ignition
If you do decide to go electronic, Mallory sells conversion kits for their dual point distributors. I think you can get them from Summit for about $50.00 which is cheaper than Pertronix.
It sound like you are running a hot coil and it is burning up the carbon were the rotor touches and causiing a misfire, I would check your points, change the ballaast and put a regular coil in it or just change over to pertronix unit. I am not a fan of mallory we had the same issue on a engine dyno, you just don't know if your getting a good cap or not.
yea its all mallory im even running the coil they say to run i was wondering to if the points were burned up already it ****s i got in a bind when i was building the motor so i went with the points dist to save money i even had my dad set the points hes delt with points alot more then i have and hes even scratching his head he couldnt find his dwell meter so i dont know what the dwell is i may try another set of points if that staightens it up then could my ballest resistor be bad ? or i might just junk it and go electronic ugh im glad im going to bowling green i need a few days . what gets me it was running when i parked it and when i was leaving it went all to pices like you flicked a switch i just wonder if the coil had energy built up in it and it fried the points sitting there
I would get a Mallory electronic change over for it . They aren't much money and your troubles will be gone !
Before you you pull the distributor out put it on TDC and check everything first, make sure it is pointing to number one on the distributor. This will make sure it is not a timing chain also. The other thing to check will be the weights for the advance, One may be sticking or the springs are bad and make sure all your wires are tight. If you have time just to be safe check your valve springs to make sure none are broken.
I think mallory uses 6 cyl chev points they are a lot cheaper than the ones from mallory. or just run one set of points they are easer to set just like a normal distributer and seem to last longer
Mallory points have soft rubbing blocks, Mallory condnser has multiple problems. Get the Echlin replacements noe rather than rebuilding the thing beside the road in 200 miles... Also closely examine the connections from incoming wire around to the points. The terminals are very close to the case, and I have seen one (actually still running with no measurable point gap...) with major burn marks at those terminals where the thing was obviously partially grounding. This great little Mallory had at least 4 reasons it should not have still been running, but the car was still moving (badly) under its own power. The distributor had history...max rubbing block life was under 1,000 miles. The Mallory is a core for rebuilding with decent parts, not a functional device when you buy it. Everything replaceable in there has severe issues.
thanks for the help im gonna decide what to do on the 5 hr drive to bowling green i really wanted to use mallory stuff because they were around i the 60s but i guess if convert it they wont be to many people notice ive got one good frind who used this same type set up on his race car in the 60s hes gonna look at it but hes a chevy guy so ill hafta listinen to him rib me because its a ford ill cheek everything when i get back give me time to cool down and give me some insperation too i might buy a conversion while im at the show just in case thanks again
Mallory now is nothing like Mallory in the fifties. Before byout and trip to China, they were VERY high quality. Yours will be fine with points, BUT get points and condenser at NAPA, cap and rotor too if they have them. They have the right stuff listed under Mallory. Don't even back out of the garage with current Mallory condenser. And do make sure the hot stuff isn't right against the case.
It's a shame they have gone to selling the Chinese **** like many other companies just to save a dollar ! Pure junk is all we get now ! You thing these companies would learn by now you can't beat goo American products !
For what it's worth...last Saturday I helped on a hot rod road call with what seemed like ignition problems. During this episode I learned that Advance Auto sells point/condensor set made by Sorenson. "Made in USA". At least one manufacturer still makes stuff stateside.
Bruce is right about Mallory not being even a shadow of what it was in the 50's-60's. We ran some NHRA record holders with Mallory then................Now all of my Mallory stuff is wall hangers Frank
The current Mallory CAN be made useable, though. Just can all the tuneup parts for Echlin or Standard stuff. I do not know if Echlin makes replacements for the Mallory plastic. Never got that far in debugging my friends' Mallories. Point ignition can be very reliable and does not require maintenance until many thousands of miles have p***ed...IF you have decent parts. I would not leave the driveway with M points and condenser in a car, though. I don't know when exactly Mallory went bad...maybe late 1970's? I won't touch any except vintage flattops just to be sure. Mallory the man was one of the great inventors and pioneers that made automobile ignition reliable. He was the primary designer of the '32-48 Ford ignition system. Now his name is just a label owned by someone else, cranking out points that would not have p***ed muster in 1910.
Yes all that but why run points at all anymore? It is about the outside looks of the distributor? Seems to me the magnetic impulse electronic set-up pretty much came in about the early 1970s and eliminated the h***les of points and condensers.
I have been stranded with a dead electronic module on my bike, and since then have ****canned all of em, and put points back on. can throw a spare set in the glove box or saddle bag, and eyeball the gap to get back going.
Maybe I can throw an injector system in the saddle bag while i'm at it, in case that old pesky carb burns too much gas. pft. I'm done with fancy imported electronic gizmos that **** the bed at the most inopportune time, without a hope for roadside fixin. Mechanical goodies for me.
I thought that way until a friend noticed that his '79 Transam, his first electronc car, had gone 140,000 without ignition tuning. He replaced everything just for prevention's sake, noticed new static on this radio, and went back to the original parts for another 100,000. I converted the modern cars to HEI, and found that the junkyard would sell me a complete set of good plastic and innards dirt cheap for the spare parts stash. Now...Detroit stuff is bulletproof. You'll need a new crankshaft before any ignition stuff fails. The early GM ones even ran fine on all those cars they built with seriously bad engine grounds... The unilite is VERY sensitive to bad ground and any funny behaior in voltage regulation, and will drop dead if it is not happy with both. Mallory also sells a magnetic type conversion like everyone else uses, I think...use that or points rather than unilite. For a car that won't see much milege or have to survive during winters when it is toodamncold to fix the car, I would rather have good quality points than an aftermarket electronic setup. Issue is that if a Mallory or MSD or whatever box fails in Resume Speed Idaho, you are going to be stuck for a week. If you have either points or an OEM electronic distributor, the local tractor guy can get you the parts immediately. This is a modern engine in this post...I would be 100% in favor of a Ford electronic distributor, probably with a Moroso curve kit ond non-EGR vacuum can.
Thought I would add this. I bought a Mallory dual point back in the mid to late eighties and its been nothing but reliable. It probably was a late seventies or early eighties product. Its still going with all original parts.
Electronic conversions create a hotter spark, more accurate timing, stable spark at high rpm, do not wear, etc. Those are just some of the reasons to eliminate points. Can an electronic module fail, sure it can, just like any other part on your car, but the failure rate compared to the benefits are pretty damn small. I put a PerTronix in my 66 Mustang well over a 100,000 miles ago and it still fires up faster then the points ever did. I wonder how many points I would have replaced by now? If you want to keep the looks of the Mallory for nostalgia sake, put the PerTronix conversion in it (much better technology than the Unilite) particularly the Ignitor II and never mess with it again!
I had a similar problem with a new Mallory dual point. I set up everything correctly, but it wouldn't run right. Made me wonder why I even wanted a dual point. Sent it back to Summit, got a refund, and bought a Mallory Unilite. Its been great!
Well I'm glad I read this post because I was going to buy a Mallory dual point distributor for my hot rod. Mallory had such a good name I thought it would be a great choice, but now I find China is making their stuff and it's not worth having. I still plan to use points just because that's what I want. I'll just have to go a different route.
Ditto Also chek the plug wires. Take an OHM meter zero it out then tcheck the resistance on the wires. They shpuld all be pretty close to the same. if you have one that way high or one that seems way low that could be an indication you have wires that could use some help. The strain goes backwards in the system not frontwards.
The Jalopy Journal
