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Hi. I was having some weird timing issues with my 351w with a b303 cam in it. I pulled the cap off the distributor and there was a big chunk of magnet flying around, the rotor wiggles, and the vacuum advance doesn't do anything. The trouble is as it is a roller cam it needs a steel gear (I think .531?), however off the shelf distributors for 351s use cast-iron gears. The question is, what distributor would yall recommend? Or should I find a used one / get a rebuild kit and just fix the broken parts leaving my working steel gear and shaft intact? Thank you!

Almost embarrassed to post this one, but I have to admit that I am stumped. Configuration: 302 V8 coupe, mostly stock rebuild upgraded alternator (powermaster ~75A) Original Stock ignition switch & NSS switch Stock voltage regulator Pertronix Ignition / coil New battery as of April this year Thermal choke, stock carb, new original style fuel pump Original harnesses (refurbed by midlife) Strange signature - history of events: Car hasn't been driven much over corona virus days. Fire it up to go see a friend, runs drives fine. Go to leave, solenoid clicks, no-start. Jump it, drive it 20min at highway speeds, no problems, stop at advance auto to check battery (good), asks me to start and it starts fine, run at 2000 rpm for a few min to check charging system (good), turn it off. Discuss, try to start and wont even click solenoid. Had to jump it to go home. At home I check electrical grounds. I have one from battery to chassis (non-stock), another in firewall for starter - both kind of loose, I clean, lube & tighten, but no change. ground from engine block to alternator is tight on both ends. I have noticed that I don't have radio or internal lights or fan box during no-click starts. I have headlights/domelights though. I swap out the solenoid, and no change. Next I dive into fuse block, pull it from wall and clean all fuses, apply anti-corrosion, NO CHANGE. WTF. Is it the starter? Failing to engage? I can jump power to it, but haven't done that yet. If it was that, why does that crank with a jump? Is the pertronix being flaky and shorting out the start circuit somehow? Why is starting circuit intermittent? Is it Neutral Safety switch? Doesn't start if I move to neural or any other gear. Why no radio with key-on? Is the starting switch worn out/mal-adjusted? I am virtually certain there are no fuel, air problems. If I go jump the car everything works. So weird. Help. I suck at electrical stuff, need some help if you have any ideas.

I've had a really weird issue come and go on my ignition system: I have a Pertronix electronic ignition, but otherwise the engine compartment has new parts and a stock rebuild. Everything is pretty new. Maybe a few years old but less than 10K miles. Everything had been running terrific, but I had a leaky radiator, and decided to replace it. I had noticed a few times recently that I had a hard time getting the car started after it sat for a week or two. I wondered if the fuel pump was getting weak, or what, but it usually started after 20-30sec crank worst case.After I had completed the radiator replacement, and repainted some of the idler pulleys, cleaned things up and put it all back together, suddenly, the car would not start. just crank & crank. My first thought was I must not be getting fuel, but it's a bit messier to check, so I opted to hook up a timing light and see if I was getting spark. Sure enough, no spark - at all - out of the ignition system. At that point, I had no idea why. "Well, I wonder if the coil is bad" I thought. I had a known good one here, I'll swapped that to see. Swap coil - still zero spark. huh. "That must mean ignition module... dammit" was my next thought (and it was starting to piss me off cause the stupid things are not cheap). I cranked it some more, and after a few minutes of trying intermittently for 10-20 sec each try, I felt the battery was getting a little weak. So, I decided to just leave it for the weekend - I had other plans, I set the battery on a trickle charge and I left scratching my head. SO, here's the weird part. after charging the battery back up to full, I decided to crank it again, and it cranks right up. Runs smooth - no issues. WTH?? How can this be? I didn't do anything other than charge the battery. This would seem to point to a condition where, the pertronix wasn't getting enough juice to get a spark thru the pertronix, but there was plenty of battery energy to crank the engine for quite awhile. I find that REALLY odd. Have any of you had this happen? I drove the car around for half-hour tonight - it's running perfect. No pertronix or ignition symptoms whatsoever. So weird, the whole "no spark" condition is completely gone. I need help figuring out what happened there, cause I sure as hell didn't imagine it. Thanks for any thoughts. Jay

Hello everyone, I have a msd blaster 2 ignition coil with a 6AL and an MSD distributor on my 302 engine. When I take the car out for long drives (4 to 5 hrs on highway at 70 mph) everything runs great. When I leave the car in the driveway running for 30 min or longer the ignition coil gets very hot and the engine stalls. Impossible to start it up again until it cools off. Could anyone give me some insight on what the problem may be? Never misfires and timing seems to be spot on. Thanks in advance for your time and help. All the best from sunny Italy! Paul

I am completely re-wiring my 69 Mustang project car. I'm having trouble with some of the instructions. My car is a manual transmission and does not have a Neutral Safety Switch. I know this because once I forgot to take the car out of 1st gear before I started it one time and it lurched forward when I cranked it. I've also read via Google searching that a Neutral Safety Switch is meant for an automatic transmission, like a C4, to prevent the car from starting when in gear. Makes sense. However, if you have a manual trans, the Painless instructions say nothing to the effect of "if you have a manual transmission, do <such and such> instead. So I have these 2 wires in the engine compartment just hanging out that look very important. They both 919 wires with both connecting to the Neutral Safety Switch. However, if a Neutral Safety Switch is not present in a car... like all manual transmissions from what I understand (sorry, I'm a novice here)... what am I supposed to do? Should I just connect these 2 wires together. In my mind, that would basically be the function of the Neutral Safety Switch... I just don't have one. As you can see in my attachment is the wiring diagram. The 919 wire goes from the starter solenoid --> to the Neutral Safety Switch --> then to the ignition switch. If I had an automatic transmission and the car was in neutral, I'm guess the switch continues that 919 connection... so wouldn't it makes sense to, in the absence of a Neutral Safety Switch to just make the connection manually? Thanks in advance for any advice.

Several months ago my engine started to randomly shut off while I was driving. This would happen anywhere between coming to a stop or when driving up to 65 mph. The engine would complete turn off without any shutters. I could pump the gas but nothing would happen. When this would happen at freeways speeds, the car of course being in drive, it would not cause the engine to jump start itself. The radio would also die. I could shift into neutral and most of the time it would start up immediately again. I thought that I solved the problem when I discovered that a wire for my after market tachometer was hanging down buy the headers. The insulation had burnt off and it was shorting out on the headers and killing the engine. I taped up the wire and relocated it. I also gave the engine a tune up with new points, rotor and plugs. The problem seemed to have gone away but a couple weeks ago it came back with a vengeance. Now it will sporadically die in the same fashion. Could the coil be damaged from the short in the tac line? I'm sure the problem is electrical but I don't know what might be causing it. Occasionally the key will be warm when I remove it from the ignition. Is that the sign of a bad ignition switch? Also sometimes when the engine dies the turning the iginition to start will do nothing. The starter won't engage and the radio won't come on. I could really use some help on this one. I don't have much experience on diagnosing problems. Thanks