So I pulled apart my distributor and it was definitely sticking. You could turn it back a few degrees and the grease was dried up and sticky.

When I got it down to the centrifugal weights and springs at the base, one of the plastic spring mounts broke.


I am thinking a dab of jb weld over the end to keep the spring from leaving and flying up over it?

On the plus side it does not seem to stick at all anymore and goes right back to stop once you twist it.

I guess this is why everyone complains about these?


What a pain. At least nothing else broke. I doubt the little plastic spring seats are available.

Hopefully it will run close to right the spring had to be clamped a little bit to keep it on the shaft....

AA has new repro distributor plates for about $30. Seem the plates and hardware are starting to fail.

Can not find it and I doubt they sell the plastic spring seats that slide down onto the tiny metal shaft where the centrifugal advance/weights are.


Looks like I will have to clean the top and I guess try sculpting a new guard from JB weld with a toothpick and letting it dry.

Only idea I have.

How is the ball bearing shell/clamp held in? Does anyone have a good photo or explanation?

I can't see how this thing sits in there and holds the ball bearing down on the plate now that it is out :|

Which distributor .... /4 or /6? Which number (Bosch ID please)

It is a /4 I am at work now and can not get the # until 11:30 or 12am ET.

I will need to rebuild this thing 100% proper but I think this ghetto fix will work to limp it.

I basically took a very small dab of JB Weld Kwik weld, mixed it a little more friendly towards the hardener and used a dental pick to spin it around the top of the metal post building out a little retainer.

I put it upside down for about 5 minutes, then back normal and made sure that it was not running down onto the spring sot he spring could rotate as the shaft does, I.E. no binding.

I think this will hold for this weekend or until I can get this sorted 100% proper. I think I may want to source a new distributor and rebuild that with new springs, and parts. Or do that to this when I am not trying to go on a 130 mile roadtrip friday

Can you get rebuild kits for these still?


If it helps the car is a 1975 1.8l L-Jet california spec car that had EGR/Cat. So it has a two port vacuum unit and the funky throttle body switch only cali cars had I think?

Your distributor will be a Bosch 0 231 176 048 / VW 021 905 205 AB.

Want one? ... it's sitting on my desk but needs to be cleaned.

Oh, the ball bearing is held in place by the little hat and screw you see in the upper right of the housing.



A couple of more for your entertainment ...





Wow, that second image must have been taken by Sire Ahandie!!!

Yes absolutely I do. This can stave off the eventual distributorless megasquirt i'd rather do after the winter bodywork and metalwork/fix shit that's broke and replace 30 year old bushings/rubber rebuild.

(trying to not do eleventy things at once to the car, but if I get stuck I move on to some other thing/task)

Ahh ok, it was like 4am and I was kind of fucked up posting that, that makes sense now that the tab comes from above via the screw.......

I managed to keep all the parts, circlips and washers together.


My distributor was so bad there was visible rusting coming off the centrifugal weight arms that attach. I had to work them off over the corrosion and clean the studs they ride on and that the circlips go on!

Those photos help, I can look at them later tonight when I put my ghetto rigged distributor back together.

I am confident the JB weld will hold, and since it's not binding the spring should work fine for this weekend until I can get that and rebuild it.

I am mucking with the distributor again, it appears my little retainer for the ball was installed wrong. It was not screwed in and it was wedged underneath somehow....

I do remember this from late last night!


Back to the garage to go work on this more. Thanks for the distributor and pics

So like VW's Porsche/Bosch is different with the same part #

My bearing retainer rests against the bottom of the fixed plate that the vacuum advance plate moves against.

It goes underneath and it will not bend back to compress unless you have something to hold the bottom on......


Since there is no screw just a hole and a little dimple that sticks out, can you guess what I did?

Yeah I fucking JB welded it after cleaning it to the bottom of hte fixed plate. It may only last 1 or 2 more cleanings, but the distributor you sent I can do proper and it does not have this shitty ball retainer setup.


Talk about weird, exact same part # and two different distributors!

What year is that one from Slits?

The bottom of my retainer looks almost like a spad connector.

Try NAPA or one of those stores for a rebuilt one. You could use it as a core maybe. They use to be dirt cheap.

Auto Atlanta has one for 375$

At that price, and another 175$ or so I could have a megasquirt conversion running with parts I have around here.

I just found a leaky injector also, to go with the mismatched 1 blue injector and 3 beige.

Might be time to match up a set of newer bosch injectors and go standalone to fix it all at once.

The Flapper box to throttle body boot is aging quick... etc.