Re: Distributor Question/help!
If the phasing is good, just reset the timing to spec. As you noted, the phasing won't change if you turn the whole distributor, it will only change if you change the position of the breaker plate or distributor cap independently.
Well, I can try it again. I did try to reset the timing after that first episode and my recollection was that it didn't run very well. But that was before I corrected the rotor height issue, which was severe.
I have yet to mount the steel gear to my 'new' shaft (thank you) but I guess that I do not need to pay any attention to the lateral position of the gears? I put the motor on top dead center before I pulled the distrib so I should have no difficulty even if the new gear placement is off a few degrees from it's original position.
To correct the rotor height issue, I took the 'new' distributor body, machined .080 off the mounting base so that I would still get good insertion into the oil pump drive shaft, I spaced the distributor shaft up .080 so the rotor tip is now up facing the cut out on the cap cylinder stud and then I trimmed enough off the bottom of the distrib body so that I could use the same collar pin hole in the shaft.
Another issue that came to light was the gear height. A Ford Racing Part link;
http://www.fordracingparts.com/download/instructionsheets/FordInstShtM-12390-ABCDEFGH.pdf
showed that the gear height should be between 4.031 and 4.038. Mine was at 4.028 and you could see on the gear thrust that it had been contacting the block a little too hard. I plan on installing the gear about .002-.003 higher than I had it before. That would put it at about 4.025 which is way out of the stated spec but where it seems to want to be. The gear teeth wear was just a wee bit high from how it had been on the iron gear with my flat tappet cam (w/ 100's of hours of operation). Also that iron gear still had 2/5 ths of it's nitrite finish on the bottom thrust surface.
