Question about tercel distributors

[emmahumpfritter]

Hello,

I'm a newby t the site, but not to 80's toyotas. I've had an 88 Toyota 5-spd 4wd van for many years now and still love it. I recently picked up an 86 tercel 4wd wagon 5-spd that supposedly has something wrong with the distributor. I grabbed the disty out of the only wagon at my local yard, which is an 82 model. From my limited research, both of these years rn the 3ac motor (yes?) my question is, the disty on my 86 has one vacuum line coming off the advance "canaster" while the disty off the 82 has two vacuum lines. Can anyone tell me if I can make this 82 disty work on my 86? Can I (for example) which over the "canaster" or perhaps plug one of the vacuums off the 82 disty. I'd rahter not buy a new distributor since autozone quoted me $229.00 plus core charge. Thanks, Brenton

[keith]

Some have three vacuum ports. Just cap off the ones you don't need. On the two port distributor, put a piece of vacuum hose on one port at a time and suck, see which one moves the advance plate. Put a little oil on the mechanical weights too.

[emmahumpfritter]

Great, thanks for the info!...

[Petros]

The one vac line distributor should work fine. The two and three vac line dist are for emission controls, and only reduce your economy. One is for advancing the spark at part throttle driving, which improves your economy. The other one or two lines are controlled by certain other engine functions (load and temp) and they back the timing off to reduce emissions during certain driving conditions. So the newer distributors have one vacuum advance port, and one or two vacuum retard ports. When the spark is retarded it reduces the engine efficiency.

So you do not really need the the other two for it to drive normal. But you have to determine with vacuum line is for advancing the timing, and connect that up to your one port, and cap the other two off. I have my vacuum retard lines disabled.

Good luck.

[emmahumpfritter]

This all makes sense. I'm all for economy (sort of a hypermiler) So how will I go about figuring which port is for timing advance? The sucking thing mentioned before? Thanks, Brenton

[takza]

Take the cap of the dist...and enough other stuff to see the plate (part outside the inner shaft)...use a piece of vac tube to suck on each different port...the one that rotates the plate opposite the rotation of the inner shaft when operating...is the one advancing it. I forget offhand which way it rotates.

[keith]

With the distributor out and the cap off, you can see a rod coming from the vac advance to the ignitor plate. If you push this rod toward the vac advance you can feel the pressure if you have a finger capping off the correct port. Or you can hook up a vac line to each port and suck on it to see which one works.

More info

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3700

[emmahumpfritter]

Perfect!!! Thanks guys.

[garyfish]

If it's only the vac advance that's needed, Rock Auto sells 'em for less than $60 plus shipping

http://rockauto.com/

Standard Motor Products Part # VC360, $58.79 + s/h

Here's a pic of an Airtex vac advance (listed in the Rock online catalog for auto. trans models, but the manual trans part looks identical)
http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/moreinfo.php?pk=932393

These have 3 vac ports... just plug off the 2 you don't need. If you have the dizzy out, installing the new vac advance is easy... I just did it for my '85 T4WD a couple months ago.

[gmeddy]

OK, Let's revive this post with some real technical stuff about the dissy.
I did a search and as far as i could find, no one has posted about fully dis-assembling the dissy as i did yesterday.
I took some photos.
it's very easy, as the Toyota FSM explains it pretty well step by step. I didn't realize it came out of the engine so easily once the one adjuster bolt is removed.
i fully dis-assembled it while it was on the engine... and THEN worked out it came out so easy.

I have two questions, for anyone who has ventured down this path before.
(see my photos in the upload folders "tercel4wd.com/upload" in my files, in the folder "dissy")

the two springs inside that are attached to the weights, are they supposed to be the same size or (in my case) are they supposed to be different, one being much heavier guage and sloppy lose not holding any tension on it's connections?


and the breaker plate, the plate that the vacuum advance arm is actually connected to, i removed that, and it was completely seized, the bearings inside it were all clogged up with gunk.
i broke it free and sprayed it thoroughly with crc and it came pretty good, a bit gritty though... i tried to feed some greese to it.


my local parts shop does not think he can get any of these parts.
not even the O-Ring i need for the leaking oil seal.

the insides of my Dissy were absolutly filthy, grimey greasy yuck.

If you have not completely removed all the parts out of your dissy before, and given it all a clean out like this, i would advise you do. it's fun and easy.
and good to clean all that gunk out i think. mine looks like new now, but i still need to find that o-ring and a new c-clip that i lost when it shot off somewhere when i carelessly removed it from one of the weights.

[gmeddy]

i work at a small airline, i found that an o-ring fits perfectly, part number ms28775-216 if anyone's interested.
i think it's a worldwide standard part number for aero components suppliers.

[garyfish]

I had to get a new O-ring for my dizzy from my local Toyota dealer... couldn't find it stocked or otherwise available at auto parts stores in my area.

The dizzy O-ring may be a standard size (diameter), but my recollection is that it's much thicker material than the O-rings that come in those assortment kits.

[keith]

Yes, the springs are supposed to be different sizes and one is loose. This makes the advance curve curved, not a straight line.

[gmeddy]

thanks for the info on the spring, i can rest easy now.
I do have one other thing to mention.
the Toyota FSM says to space the points rubbing block at .4mm, but that opens up the contacs on my points to about 1.5-2mm.
resulting in it pinging no even if i have it fully retarded!
i've had to close the points gap down to a more suitable gap.
I dont know if it's the aftermarkets points i've got that have a larger rubbing block or if the manuals wrong.

[keith]

Points? Haven't seen them since the 60's.