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Ok I've got the car on the ground now. I've got spark but my Bosch Distributor Cap is dancing while turning the motor over. I found the rotor hitting the contacts in the cap. I read that replacement Bosch caps need to be filed so they can sit properly. After filing the notch opening, there is still contact by the rotor in the cap. The cap just doesn't feel like it fits as it should. What's the deal with this BS? Should I install a Bremi cap? Or am I doing something wrong?
Are you sure the rotor is seated?
Yea the rotor is seated. I checked it like 3 times to make sure that it was located into the slot and pushed all the way down. Anyone know the VW rotor application that eliminates the rev limiter?
I have heard the 009 rotor would do that, but I have never tried it or seen it done.
G--
What distributor? A cast-iron Bosch? Of course you know this is different from the aluminum body distributors from 68-, so the caps are also different. Cast-iron Bosch have a circular white plastic insulator for the points wire to pass through the body. The top half of the circle is chopped off so it can clear the cap. If this rotates it will push the cap up, so make sure it is flush. Now the correct Bosch caps for a cast-iron have a semicircular cutout one one side, again unlike the LWB caps. This is to clear the insulator.
Also, co-located with one of the clips that hold the cap on is a metal tab that engages a slot in the cap, this has to be straight up and down.
Make sure your clips are nice and tight also, you can squeeze them to tighten them up.
This whole business about modifying a brand new cap never made sense to me. File a brand-new Distributor cap? Not the German way. Try fitting the whole thing up without the rotor installed, the cap should not rock or move or do whatever. If you have to pull the distributor to sort it out, this is not a huge deal.
I had one of those nice brown Bremi caps in my car at Parade, after swapping the distributor I left one of the clips loose when I hit the starter. . . POW! And the brand new cap was in three pieces. (I am just glad that Ed didn't hear me, I looked over and he was focused cleaning his Recaro seats. . . it is one thing to be a ham-fist but an order of magnitude more embarassing to screw up in front of a Guru. . . especially when I'm supposed to know better! ) Out of the stash came the NOS Bosch. . .perhaps this was the spirit of Herr Doktor guiding me toward originality? :)
We all fumble the football John :D
Yes I have the original cast iron Bosch distributor that came with my car (Early 67 pro date MY 68). When I think that the cap is sitting flush, the back side clamp for the cap is extremely loose. I have the original cap from when I bought the car and the two caps look identical. And yes the car was running when I bought, it was just a smoker. I'm going to trim the insulator pad at the points connection this afternoon and see if that helps.
Finally I got it fired! Almost better than sex ;)
I took the distributor out and pre-fitted the cap properly. I trimmed the insulator at the points connector, as well as filing the cap to fit that area. I then reshaped the two distributor cap clamps so they fit snuggly on the cap. I made sure the fit was perfect. I then reinstalled the distributor and set the timing statically. Reinstalled the cap and walah...It fired right up. I ran the motor up to 3000 RPMs for the 20 minutes break-in. The temp got up to 220...good oil pressure...but the oil level gauge was not working. The motor was very noisy internally, but quieted down after a couple of minutes. When the 20 minutes was up I lowered the idle down to 800 and began adjusting the air/fuel on the Webers. I got them pretty close, but they appear to be running a little rich. I'll install the seats next and go for its maiden cruise :) Shoulda had the seats in...dah :o
Thanks to all who walked me thru the obstacles...along the way....
My first 911 engine experience...learned a lot...