Remanufactured distributor bearings

[Nordical25]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to share a bit info of remanufactured distributors. I found them dirt cheap from Ebay some years ago. They have been to me a great update compared to original point ignition. But today I learned a bit more of their expected lifetime.

They are built well except one little detail, which can cause issues right after a couple thousand miles or kilometres. The difference is distributor bearing. The main difference between OEM bearing and remanufactured one is the rubber shield. My distributor bearing lacked any rubber of metal shields. That is why all the bearing grease escaped from the bearing very quickly and it ran dry soon. Running dry caused an increased wheel play.

It became so loose that distributor reluctor hit other components, which caused some ignition problems. They were fixed after swapping another remanufactured distributor.

I will fix therefore my all remanufactured distributors by putting into them new bearings with rubber shields similarly to OEM bearing. This will help the grease to stay in the bearing and prevent bearing from additional wheel play.

[dlb]

Do these reman'd distributors come with a new vacuum advance unit? Because those units on their own are around $150 US on ebay. I wonder if the reman'd distributor would be a cheaper option for getting new vacuum advance units.

[Mark]

That's strange about the non-sealed bearings. Pretty much all generic bearings nowadays come with seals (usually metal ones for electric motors). If you want an unsealed bearing so it can be grease-able, you can always pry out the seal. It's almost like someone would have to go out of their way to use unsealed bearings in those re-built distributors. I can understand if it was a bearing inside a transmission for example where it was constantly being bathed in oil, but to use unsealed bearings in that distributor almost seems like an intentional practical joke.

[Nordical25]

Do these reman'd distributors come with a new vacuum advance unit? Because those units on their own are around $150 US on ebay. I wonder if the reman'd distributor would be a cheaper option for getting new vacuum advance units.

Yes they do. I have tested all of my vacuum units and they seem to be ok. They were a bit stiffer than a brand new Denso OEM unit but seem to hold vacuum anyway. They come usually with coil, ignition module, reluctor & hall sensor. So lots of good spare parts. That is why I consider them as a good buy.

You need to be just careful to buy just right one for you. There are 3 different ones: 1 port advance unit, 2 port advance unit & 3 port advance unit.

[Nordical25]

That's strange about the non-sealed bearings. Pretty much all generic bearings nowadays come with seals (usually metal ones for electric motors). If you want an unsealed bearing so it can be grease-able, you can always pry out the seal. It's almost like someone would have to go out of their way to use unsealed bearings in those re-built distributors. I can understand if it was a bearing inside a transmission for example where it was constantly being bathed in oil, but to use unsealed bearings in that distributor almost seems like an intentional practical joke.

Exactly. I have three similar distributors and I will check if they all are similar. This could be also a single case or the bearing could be so worn that rubber shields were completely destroyed. But I will post the results once I get this distributor back together and start reworking the two remaining ones.

[Nordical25]

Everything ok in two remaining distributors. The funny thing was that one had metallic shield and another one had rubber shields. The positive thing is that you can check distributor bearing shield by removing just distributor cap & ignition coil. So you don't need to remove distributor shaft from distributor housing.

The weird thing was that my one remanufactured distributor had weight springs swapped incorrectly. I checked the correct order from my OEM distributors. Having distributor springs in incorrect order could affect also idle since the springs look different.