Technical Stromberg E-fire distributor. Anyone have problems? (Problem solved)

I’ve got 100 miles on a new build and have been chasing an intermittent stall for quite awhile. Pulled the distributor cap off the Stromberg E-fire distributor and noticed the center contact looked pretty bad. It was wiggling around and fell right out when I turned the cap over.



Ordered a new Stromberg replacement cap from Summit. Center contact button doesn’t look installed squarely, plastic is chipped up around where it’s pressed(?) into place. And it has noticeable movement when poked at.



I’ve never seen a distributor cap where the button wasn’t firmly clamped in place. Unless it was the type with a spring behind it. And those still seem tight side to side.

It’s the first ‘42-‘48 style Flathead distributor I’ve worked on. Am I missing something? Or are these just…not so good?

 

Front mounted version? There is a thread on "The Ford Barn" addressing the lack of a second bearing in the unit that causes instability that leads to problems like this.

It might be worth checking out.

 

I have one, never had a problem with the cap other than the little tangs that hold it to the distributor don't seem to click into place very solidly, I ended up putting a zip tie around it to make sure it can't come loose. My cap's been fine though.

One thing I'll mention here, not necessarily related but in case this thread comes up in someone's troubleshooting search, is that the 6V distributor will run poorly at speed if your generator is not working. They need like 6.8V to run at full throttle, so if you have no generator, it'll start fine off of a charged battery but it'll break up under load. I had that issue and found out my generator was junk, swapped it out for a working one and then it ran strong again.

 

I'll also say that the guy from England who makes these is very, very good about responding to troubleshooting questions if you email him. He walked me through my issues and responded quickly, excellent customer service as far as that goes. You might try contacting him with your concerns.

 

Yes, front mounted version. Interesting, I’ll check it out. Thanks!

 

I’m using the 12V version and a Powergen alternator. Volt gauge showing plenty of voltage. But that’s a good point with electronic ignitions.

Good idea, I’ll send him an email. Thanks!

 

Update on this. I talked to Stromberg and they have changed manufacturers for their distributor caps. They are now made in the USA. They sent me a new USA made cap and the quality is far far better than the previous two caps.

I’ve got a couple test runs on the new USA made cap and the problem seems to have been resolved.

 

Thanks for the follow-up and apparent resolution to your problem. Sounds like good news all around. So many posts like this seem to end up in limbo or remaining unresolved.