2.0 Djet. I changed out the plate due to a disconnected ground about a year ago and cleaned and lubed everything at that time. It has worked fine since then, til yesterday. Went to start the car and it did not sound right. Then no spark. Fiddled with a few things to make sure the wiring on the coil did not rattle loose etc, tried again and the distributer rotated 180 degrees and exposed this fancy new hole.

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Towed it home and dismantled the distributer this morning to find the following.

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It had been wearing away for a while based on the metal shavings. The shavings are not brass / bronze from the normal wear of the rotor /cap.

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Notice the wear on the FI trigger points plate too

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Part numbers for reference

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Here is a picture of the car for good measure. She looks real good (sitting in the garage!)

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Damn, interesting.

Try Rich at HPH in Redwood City:

http://www.highperformancehouse.com/

Damn! Looks like it threw a rod!
Can't say I've ever seen that before.

A weight came adrift. Either the spring was broken for a while, the pivot pin broke, or the hole in the weight wore through. The weight then jammed between moving parts and the housing. Bang. It's likely the problem was impending for some time.

I've seen it before.

The Cap'n

I have as well, it didnt hit hard enough to blow out the side but smacked hard enough to bulge the case with visible fractures on the outside.
Mine was caused by a spring going awol.

I have one. Here it is. Let me know if it will work for you:

Jup,

Bosch distributors do that. Blew one in my 1973 Superbeetle. Spring went and the weight slung out through the side.

Got a new one for $25 back then.

Yeah, that happened to me when I had a Bumblebee in the 80s. I ended up transplanting all my parts into a VW bus dizzy case. Worked fine, but I probably got called a DAPO by somebody down the line.

My car did the same thing -- shot the piece clean through the side of the distributor housing -- but not before it stove up the distributor altogether . . . which stopped the distributor drive shaft, which is driven by a BRASS gear on the crankshaft (or camshaft, don't recall for sure). The brass gear lost the fight, and I wound up with brass chunks and shavings in my engine case and a good reason to do an engine rebuild. You should try to get a look at that gear to see if it suffered any damage; you wouldn't want that stuff sloshing around in your engine.

Mark

Mark, Thanks for bringing this point up. I had not thought that far ahead. SO this morning I pulled the gear and sure enough, more carnage.

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Sleepin's offer of a replacment unit sold before I got to it so I am still looking. Does anyone have any experience with the rebuilt ones by Cardone?
Valy has one from a 73 that I am considering also.

I now also need a new drive gear. Are there any differences I need to be aware on on the drive gears throughout model years / bus cases?

The plan is to pull as much of the brass filings out the top of the hole first, then drain the oil, pull the screen and flush some kind of solvent (recomendations?) down through the distributer hole to flush any remaining pieces out. I will use a filter to catch what I can so I can hopefully see how much I am able to remove vs what came off the drive gear to compare.

Cap'n was right on as usual. In this case the hole in the weight wore through and out it went. Also, the pictures of the distributer hole were not taken by Andy, the iphone isn't so great up close.

Actually the bottom 1/4 of your drive is ok. That just how they look. Cant remember why though, i think it was clearance for the case or thrust washer or something.

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Now I gotta go take something apart

Looks like you might owe Mark a beer. It would appear that you are going to need to split your case to replace the drive gear. All those brass shavings are what is left of it. However, if you had just replaced the dizzy and fired it up, it would be much worse (you gotta look on the bright side). Great looking car, btw.

bigkensteele is right about splitting the case. The brass drive gear is tatered now after its run-in with the steel drive shaft. Even if you could flush the chunks & shavings out of the engine, the two gears might not engage in a trustworthy manner. Judging from how my drive gear looked when I removed it, the poor fit between the gears would lead to more brass shavings over a prolonged period, meaning you might have to replace a bunch of parts instead of just one.

Stiff upper lip! This is an opportunity. Go kick its butt.

Mark

I was under the impression that the drive gear on the distributer side was brass while the gear on the cam was steel. After cleaning up the distributer drive gear I now see that it is steel and shows almost no wear. Which means the trashed gear is the one on the cam. Fuch!

I guess I will be splitting the case. I am tremendously glad to have had everyone's help in figuring that out before really screwing things up.

It has been 20 years since I rebuilt a type 1 so I will have a lot of questions.

Make sure you open a thread.

Totally random but could you tell me the tire size you're running?

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Totally random but could you tell me the tire size you're running?
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205-55-16 on Superlight 16x7 wheels. Very close to stock circumference so speedometer is still accurate. They fit the stock body but I rolled the lip on the rear fenders just to be safe. Car is lowered some as well.

Its actually driven off the crankshaft.
Its not super hard to get this done.
Hunt down a good use distributor drive gear so you have it ready and after you crack the case, bring the crankshaft to the machine shop for polishing.
Part of the process is to remove the drive gears and main bearing on the end of the crank so it will mount up in the machine.

Bottom line, the machine shop can do this for you when the time comes.

If you want to, you can easily remove all the pieces with one gear splitter and a small mapp gas torch....

You will need a new gasket kit.
New main bearings
New rod bearings
New front and rear main seal.
New distributor gear for the crank.

One long weekend you can pull the motor and split the case to get the crank out.
Then get it to a shop to get polished.
You spend your nights cleaning out that case and cleaning up all the parts.

Then the following weekend, bolt it back together....

It does not need to turn into a 6 month restoration project...and its really not a huge deal to do this if you stay focused.

With these new motors and rubber bands that drive the camshafts, IC my son doing a new head job on at least one car per month...and that is a major piece of work.

They get in, get out and move on as quickly as possible.
Every head he does has bent valves, cracks...lots of damage.
Its why machine shops exist.

Just put your head down, dont dream big, and fix what got broken so you can enjoy the car

Whatever you do, dont start thinking about more power.



Rich

[quote name='Millerwelds' date='Sep 13 2011, 07:00 AM' post='1538538']
[/quote]
Totally random but could you tell me the tire size you're running?
[/quote]

205-55-16 on Superlight 16x7 wheels. Very close to stock circumference so speedometer is still accurate. They fit the stock body but I rolled the lip on the rear fenders just to be safe. Car is lowered some as well.
[/quote]
Well done! I haven't seen superlights on and non-flared car before....i think im in love!!!

......Never seen that before...don't care to

Since I have to tear this apart I am thinking larger cam, bigger pistons, dual 44 carbs instead of FI....

Just kidding. Thanks Rich for the breakdown. This engine was built by SilverBullit (Jason) before he decided to go with a 6 and then decided to get out of 914's altogether (I think). Anyway he knew what he was doing and I doubt the engine has 15,000 miles on it so the plan is to take it apart and fix it and slap it back together ASAP.