I was cleaning up my distributor and saw two strange copper blobs on the distributor plates. Is there supposed to be a wire braid where the red line is in? If there is supposed to be a braid there what have you used to replace it? Desoldering wick and solder it in place?

can't help 'ya, but this question deserves a

Andy

Thanks Andy, I'm surprised no one's answered yet. I even did my homework before posting and opened up my spare distributor -- has the same two copper blobs but no braid.

My guess is there's supposed to be a braid there, I'm soldering one in (using some fine desolding wick). Further looking at it, the braid would seem to be the ground for the points through the two vacuum advance plates. Without it you'd be relying solely on contact between the two plates, which should theoretically be separated by a thin layer of grease.

I belive it is to make sure that the conection is good (grounding out the points at the plate).
:PERMAGRIN: Joe

i'm surprised nobody answered this either. Yep its the ground strap for the dizzy. If it's not there and you still have points ignition, you found your major stumbling problem. If you went to pertronix like i did or something else, then you're golden, bc the points were the only thing that used the ground in the dizzy. you can follow the wiring around the dizzy--the ground "energy path" starts at the base of the dizzy, works its way up the side and into the attachment point for the lower plate, crosses either the copper strap or randomly through the grease layer, and onto the top plate and through the metal of the points--and finally out the other side of the points, through the black wire, to the condensor and out to the coil ground.

Thanks for the answers guys.

bd1308 - I never had a stumbling problem. Just doing routine maintenance since the PO never really did much to the car in the 10 years he had it. Turns out one side of my trigger points was going bad. The phenolic block the trigger contact sits on was starting to crack and fail. I had a good spare. Since the car was running good before all this I don't think I'll see a difference.

yep, its the grounding strap location. Since you are in there, check the dizzy for slop/wear. The center post should not move side to side at all, there should be some play up and down.

Some up and down slop but tight side to side.

I fought the car all day on Sunday after putting the distributor back in. Car would run for a few seconds then sputter out. Usually not enough time to check anything. I did everything I could think of; checked wires, checked cap, put old points back in, put old condensor back in, tried different rotors, but the stupid thing kept dying on me.

I finally decided it must be electrical and must be something with the distributor. So I pulled out my Bosch injector test light and hooked it up to one of the injector leads. Started the car, got it to run for about 10 seconds and noticed that occassionally the tester light would go out and the car would stumble and die.

Turns out one side of my supposed "good" spare injector trigger had a very high resistance. One set of injectors wasn't getting a signal and the car would die. I pulled the distributor again and yanked the injector trigger points. I lightly sanded the contacts with some 600 grit sandpaper and played with the braided wires a bit and the resistance dropped back down to below 1 ohm.

Popped them back in and the car runs great, got my dwell set, now to set the timing. Not sure I trust those injector trigger points now, might have to find another "good" spare just in case.

If you don't have an ignition problem with the ground wire gone, it's a miracle. If the ground wire is gone, odds are the plate is worn out as well. They're available. The Cap'n

No previous ignition problems without the ground wire. The plate doesn't seem to be worn bad -- there was still grease between the the plates when I pulled them apart. I regreased them when I put them back in. Hopefully my "spare" trigger points will be ok and not leave me on the side of the road. I'll have to make a few short trips to test them out.