VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1916-1922 - Model 490 490 Distributor

I tried to remove my distributor yesterday to clean and lube it, and it will not budge. Since both distributor and generator end-housing are die-castings, I'm guessing the pot-metal has expanded and galled over the years. The pot-metal distributor clamp was broken in half, but it's not really needed - the distributor's not going anywhere. Since my distributor and end-housing appear to be in good condition, I'm going to leave them as is rather than try brute force. Has anyone else run into this and have a suggestion?

I have photos (from Chuck Lynn) of an aluminum distributor and generator end-housing made by a machinist in upstate NY. Does anybody have contact info for this guy? I may want to replace my die-cast parts when I pull the engine for rebuild down the road.

Mine has a chunk out of the area where the dist goes down inside the end frame. Dads dist, fell apart years ago but he found one in good shape. If it is working, It might be best to leave that part alone until ready to replace it. One turn of a wrench can crumble the whole thing, but the strange thing is if left alone might be ok for years.

Here's contact info for the NY machinist who makes aluminum distributor housings. I haven't talked to him, but Chuck Lynn says he's a good guy to work with:

Bruce Wright
579 Vly Summit Rd.
Cambridge, NY 12816
(518) 692 - 9328

Bruce made a distributor housing for Chuck's 490. I'll try posting a photo but the quality is marginal. I mistakenly thought Bruce also made the generator end housing, but I guess that's another vendor in Canada. I'll try to get his contact info too.

DELETED and BANNED.

That would be cool if he could make a distributor for my 24 Olds. The original Delco dist is in pieces and most are missing but I found another one which was intact untill the bozo who sold it to me decided to keep the cap and rotor and sell them to me separate at a very high price. He broke the distributor when he took the cap off! Boy was I ticked off on that deal and no I did not buy his cap as those can be found! (No cars left to use them up!) My Olds uses a 60s Chevy 6 distributor that was modified. It works but looks wrong. Does he do other types besides the Remys?

Sorry for not removing the spam from this guy, but my PC has been down for five days. Up and go again today, I think.

Is that you Solan?

I don't know Bob. Give him a call.

I can provide aluminum replacements. I have done it a lot on the old pot metal housings. I don't keep any in stock and would need the old unit in hand. If it is in too bad of shape, I can check and see if I have a good template from a past job. I will try and post a couple of pics of a reproduction Autolite distributor housing on a project I did for a 1922 Earl. They look just like original when complete. If I don't have any luck getting pics uploaded, you can see this unit on my website www.aerrebuild.com , it's the generator/distributor for a 1922 Earl.
Let me know if I can help anyone out,

Well, I'm not sure how to post pics, the best I could do is make it my stock photo for all of my posts. Hopefully you guys can see it good enough. I can always email you photos if you would like.

Any tips on how to post photos?

Instructions are in FAQ&HELP at the top of this thread. Perhaps the best solution is to contact a computer expert (a grand son or grand daughter) and let them talk you through the procedure. Really not that hard once you have the path.

Yes, junkyard dog. I have trouble with my PC and had to operate another user ID to get into the game again. Will return to Solan soon.