Series 75 engine ignition doesn't line up

[Narve N]

The original style distributor cap on a Series 75 has each cylinders plug-wire mounting marked on its lid to ease assembly. However on this engine the numbers doesn't match. When adjusting the ignition with cylinder #1 on top, the rotor roughly faces cylinder #3 indicating that the rotor shaft is out by about 60 degrees. As the distributor only fits two ways 180 degrees apart, something else must be done. Has anyone encountered this issue and what is the solution, would it require to drop the pan and to remove the oil pump?

[hchris]

Have you considered just repositioning the plug wires to suit the firing order  ?

[Narve N]

8 hours ago, hchris said:

Have you considered just repositioning the plug wires to suit the firing order  ?

Of course, and had it been a standard distributor lid I would not have bothered with this annoying misalignment. Plus, the leads will have to be trimmed to fit the lid and a reversal of the order will be more challenging with short and long leads.

Edited January 16 by Narve N (see edit history)

[demco32]

Don't know about this  serie 75 engine but for Jaguar it's like this.

You have the distributor shaft that fits into a second shaft with a gear.

If the second shaft is not correct installed the slot for the distributor shaft will not be in correct position.

Plug wire numbers will not correspondent with spark plug on engine side.

If drive gear is direct on distributor shaft it could be that gear that is out of line on this 75 engine.

[hchris]

Perhaps then you would rather take the engine apart  ..... that's a  bigger annoyance 

[BlueDevil]

Narve,

 

I may be wrong but it seems to me, if you rotate the distributor counterclockwise until the the coil terminal is at 12:00 looking down from the top, that should put the rotor on number 6. If you want it on 1 then you have to take the dizzy out and rotate the long drive shaft 180 degrees

[demco32]

10 hours ago, BlueDevil said:

Narve,

 

I may be wrong but it seems to me, if you rotate the distributor counterclockwise until the the coil terminal is at 12:00 looking down from the top, that should put the rotor on number 6. If you want it on 1 then you have to take the dizzy out and rotate the long drive shaft 180 degrees

That could work if the distributor is free and not make contact with the engine.

It would not work for a jaguar engine but again this is a 75 engine.

[Narve N]

I will get a scan the Owners Manual which likely shows that the Jaguar approach is very much the same as Chrysler had back in the 20s.

Edited January 18 by Narve N (see edit history)

[BlueDevil]

Narve,

 

Here is the pump end of the distributor shaft. The my guess is you oil pump was installed a couple teeth off. Only fix is to drop the pan and the pump,

 

Then you have to rotate the pump and refit it checking to see if the distributor drive slot is parallel to the length of the block. If not, repeat previous steps until it does.

[Narve N]

On 1/18/2024 at 3:51 PM, BlueDevil said:

..my guess is you oil pump was installed a couple teeth off. Only fix is to drop the pan and the pump, Then you have to rotate the pump and refit it checking to see if the distributor drive slot is parallel to the length of the block. If not, repeat previous steps until it does.

 

Many thanks for the tip, especially that the drive slot is to be parallel to the engine when cylinder #1 is at TDC. The oil pump drive has 11 teeth and was two off on my car, resulting in a roughly 66 degrees off rotor. I dropped the pan and the oil pump, aligned the pump and then remounted it in less than two hours with no lift. Only downside is the previous owners use of siliconbased adhesive in addition to the pan gasket, necessitating remaking a pan gasket.

[BlueDevil]

Narve,

 

Great. Hopefully your issue is resolved.

 

Bill

[DFeeney]

Thanks for posting this process.  At 79 I am still learning.   Don