62-74 Tach Drive Distributor

[Christopher R.]

Bought a 62-74 tach drive distributor. What a bargain! It appears that if I spend many hours fixing and about $200 in parts, I'll have a distributor worth about $150. It's a hobby.

1. What does the "981" cast into the housing upside down on the outside mean?

2. How do you replace the 2 main shaft bushings?

[Joe C.]

Re: 62-74 Tach Drive Distributor

The upper and lower bronze mainshaft bushings can be tapped out by placing the dist. housing in a vise. Use a suitably sized 3/8" drive socket, which closely matches the OD of the bushings. Attach a suitable extension to it, and tap out the bushings with a brass hammer. After lubing the bore, use the same procedure to carefully install the new bushings, being certain that they are not "cocked".

Joe

[Joe L.]

Re: 62-74 Tach Drive Distributor

chris-----

1) The '981' and other numbers are, I believe, casting pattern numbers or, possibly, derivatives of the casting numbers used for the distributor housings. For all practical purposes, I don't think that they have any present meaning, at all;

2) I don't recommend trying to replace the housing bushings. I'd send the housing to High Tech Innovations in Florida and have them replace them. They replace the bushings and then jig bore them to perfect alignment. You can replace the bushings, but you can't jig bore them to perfect alignment.

So what happens if the bushings are not perfectly aligned with respect to each other AND with respect to the tach drive gear bore? Well, in that case, the distributor will "eat" tach gears on the cross shaft AND mainshaft. Correct alignment is not as critical for non-tach drive distributors as for the tach drive type.