VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 Lubricating a rebuilt Distributor

Have my '31 distributor apart for cleaning all the 80 yeqars of gunk etc out of it. Once all removable parts were off, I dipped it in Varsol and used a brush to clean all the centrifugal advance mechanism and all the hardened old grease etc. Shaft spins freely and nicely in housing. Now what? Should I put some 600W in shaft hole before installing grease fitting and filling with grease? Does any light oil go on advance mechanism? Any lubricant go on point lobes on shaft? Any other tips? I will plan to oil the gear drive and lower part of shaft before installing.

Spead a little white cup grease on the distributor shaft before inserting it back into the distributor body. Also put a little bit of distributor cam lobe lube on the weight plate between the weights and the weight plate. Put a few drops of oil on the shaft before inserting the distributor cam. After the cam is installed put some light weight oil on the felt wick on the top of the distributor cam.

After the distributor points are installed, also put some distributor cam lube on one high point of the cam lobe. Fill the grease cup with white cup grease and you are good to go.

THanks JYD. I did not remove the shaft from the housing, can that be done without removing the cam gear which I don't want to take apart? If I lubricate it with shaft in place, any recommendations?

Yes it is necessary to remove the gear to remove the shaft from housing. If you don't want to remove the gear you can flush the shaft by forcing solvent into the shaft using the grease cup. Will be a bit messy and not as thorough but works. Blow out the solvent with air prior to filling the grease cup. Best to rotate the shaft by hand as you are forcing grease with the cup.

To do the job correctly, the distributor gear and the shaft should be removed from the distributor body. After the gear pin is removed the gear will slide off of the shaft.

Thanks guys, I will try as Chipper suggests. This is a spare unit, so will take my time greasing it using the grease cup and spinning and turning cup. Hopefully after a period of time I will see evidence of some grease exiting end of shaft at gear. Cheers.