I left Fort Worth on Thursday evening to beat the weather and have dinner with a friend of mine outside of Austin. Two miles from my exit, I hear a huge BANG and the engine fires sporadically a couple of times then dies. I coast to the side and take a look. No big trail of oil, whew. No dumped coolant. Pull all eight plugs and they look great. She shows up and I have her turn the engine over while I check for spark. It's erratic. Not a steady fire---fire---fire, more like a fire-fire-----------fire----fire. Hmm. It's after 9 and the parts stores are closed so I have AAA tow it to her house, a six mile trip. Man it rains like crazy on Friday and it finally slows at 3pm. Let's go take a look. After chasing what I thought was an ignition problem (old Pertronix and old coil), I had her turn it over without the cap on and realize the rotor isn't turning steady with the engine. Uh-oh. Pull the distributor and the gear looks good. Peer down at the camshaft and that looks good too. It's a 43yr old engine, so maybe it knocked a couple of teeth of the crank or cam gears. Timing sets for small block Fords are just about impossible to get in Pflugerville, TX. Finally locate one but by now my dad has shown up and it's time to head to Congress and see some cars. Wake up Saturday and my dad's face is swollen up like a cow. He's got an infected abcessed tooth. We take him to south Austin for an emergency dental exam. Get back around 2pm and yank the timing cover. Timing chain and gears look fine, but a little sloppy. Hmm. Go to replace them and the timing cover, get that done about 3pm and decided I better go see some cars before the day is over. Went to the Roundup for about an hour. Apparently I missed all the good stuff because a lot of people were sunburnt, tired, and leaving. So I left too. Started to stab the distributor and since I hadn't found a definitive culprit yet, I decided to take a closer look at it. With a little effort I was able to turn the gear separate from the shaft. Oh crap. The roll pin had shattered but you couldn't tell because both "ears" of the pin were sticking out of the gear. Hardened roll pins are literally impossible to locate in Pflugerville. So I installed a 1/8" regular roll pin in there and used a second 1/16" roll pin inside it, it wedged real nice. Probably stronger than before anyway. By the time we had done dinner and gotten it back on the road it was 11:45 and I didn't feel like heading to Congress. The weekend sucked big time! But at least no one got hurt and I was able to get it back on the road, it made the trip home effortlessly like it usually does. On the bright side it runs a little better on the low end and I fixed up a small but annyoing leak from the front of the pan. Oh yeah, now I got a nifty harmonic balancer puller for my roadside toolbox! Just wanted to share a drop of knowledge from the thimble that is my brain in case you're stuck on the side of the road trying to figure it out like I was. HAPPY MOTORING
You're the second person I've heard of with the roll pin issue. My buddy has to carry a spare with him where ever he goes now. It happened to him 3 times. I like the idea of placeing a 1/16 pin inside the 1/8.
We were wondering where you and ole blue were all weekend...I guess this explains it. Glad you made it home safe and that your Pop is ok!
Man, sorry about that. I have experiance with the same thing (snapped roll pin on the distributor gear). In fact I bought with with a great 289 motor that I am using on my 36 truck. I saw the car aroiund heard it run a few times and it is a great sounding running motor and then didn't see it for a couple of months then noticed a for sale sign on it. I inquired and picked it up for $400 bucks the guy had given up on trying to fix it and couldn't find the problem. I discovered it the same way you did by popping the distributor cap and watch it turn turn intermittantly.
I was looking for your car at the show.....really wanted to see it in person. Sucks what happened but good to hear you got it fixed and made it home ok.
Thanks guys. I'm still pretty pissed I didn't see it sooner and ended up missing a great show. But it's back home and I'm just glad for that.
Just be glad it happened on a 43 year old piece of Detroit iron. If were one of these newer computer controled POS's, the diagnostic would have run $785, and to fix it would require removing the engine and 75 hours of labor. Hell, I still cant get that F'ing minivan to run, and I'm over $1000 and 4 weeks into it... Chasing a GD electrical gremlin
I also was wondering where you were. I walked by the spot on Congress you parked last year a number of times both Friday and Saturday nights looking for you. I left bummed we haven't hugged yet.
Sorry to hear about your weekend, but glad to hear you were able to work through it and make it home. I had similar fun at the HAMB drags last year. Just part of the deal when you enjoy driving old cars. Gary
Dude i seen you at the show and talked to you but did not know you were having problems. Man that sucks big time
Yep, I proudly wore my new Dirty's T on the ride home. You were busy and I didn't feel like whining. haha
Didn't get to go to Austin, but ran out of gas on the way home from the Gear Grinder. apparently I have a loose wire on my sender.
when you mentioned the problem, I guessed it correctly, I know it doesnt help you now, but BINGO! Glad ya made it home safe. the only reason I thought of that before I got to the end of the story was from experience, been there done that.
Hmmmmmmmmm, that is the first thing I thot of when you said it wasn't firing steady...it seemed logical to figure it had to be the distributor gear... Murphy's law, ya know, it won't break in town where it's easy to fix...and I always say: "If you can't fix it on the side of the road, best leave it at home." R-
The roll pin shouldn't just fail. I'll bet there are hardened pieces of 43 year old valve stem seals that got sucked into your oil pump gears & caused the pin to shear as they got chewed up. Alan
A freind of mine had the exact same thing happen to his Fiat Spider as he was passing through El Paso. No lie, we fixed it in my driveway with the pin out of my spare distributor, a pair of pliers and rock! Sorry your weekend sucked but be glad that you got to drive home and there was no major damage done.
I had a distributor problem that acted the same way, wasnt too easy to figure out untill you get the cap off and check the slack on the rotor. Sorry to hear you broke down really close to me, If I had seen you on the road I would have stopped.
Man, that does suck...but, I see that you found an excellent mood stabilizer (Shiner Bock). Always a good choice in my book !! Now available waaay up north.
it do happen, I speaketh from experience, it happened to us on a sbc and we found nothing else was wrong, weird, I guess the pin just got weak, maybe a hardeneing issue. We used another pin and ran for years no issues.
Well I'm glad all you bums had it figured out before I did, where the hell were ya on Friday night? It made it 200 miles back home so I'll assume it's okay for now. I was going a steady 70 when it failed.
Back in the day, I had a 351C that would shear the distributor gear roll pin off numerous times. I think I sold the car before ever figuring out a fix. A 1/8" roll pin with a second 1/16" pin for added strength. You're smart.
ONLY WISH I woulda been beside you, on the highway...but I was enduring one of our infamous ColoRODo snowstorms...got 12 inches of heavy, wet snow in my back yard, busted up my budding trees again and flattened the Lilac bushes... so while all of you in Austin were bitching about a little rain, we were getting hammered...can't go rod running (anywhere) in 12 inches of snow...I certainly hope that one was the last one for the spring... R-
Danny ... Sorry to hear of your troubles ... BUT you do realize that these kinds of misfortunes are to be expected when you fail to "Put a Mopar in yer Mopar" ... FORD: Found On Road Dead!
We were changing a head gasket in the Lone star Kampground on thrs nite, by FLASHLIGHT! Good to hear that you got it running. It's just a part of the adventure. jerry
I feel your pain. We did a distributor swap on a side street of MLK on friday in the pouring rain. Not nearly as much of a drawn out ordeal as yours. Sorry you had to miss Roundup ocho. S.
Just think, if it was a new car you wouldn't have been able to do anything to it... I love old engines!
The Jalopy Journal
