Distributor shaft play- is this too much?

[Columbo]

I've got a miss at idle that I've been troubleshooting.  There seems to be a lot of rotational play in the dizzy shaft but I haven't been able to find any information on what, if any, is the limit.

IMG_1100.MOV

[Buckeye]

it looks fine to me. In fact return on rotational seems to be working fine. Rotate pointer by hand and let go, it should return. Now if you take the pointer off and grab hold of shaft and move it up and down should see not more than 0.005" vertical movement. Now if you use timing light and duplicate like setting the timing, your timing mark on craknshaft pulley should not be bouncing, if it does then there are 2 posibble reasons: 1). timing chain is stretched, 2). fiber washer inside the the dizzy has de-centigrade.

[arminyack]

That rotation play is just the mechanical advance...is your vacuum advance hooked up? Are there any leaks in the line/ fittings?

[John76]

Looks like you have too much axial play. Should be about .005".

When you pulled up on the rotor in your video clip, the play was excessive. The top fiber washer most likely burned up from lack of lubrication.  Recent posts have noted the felt wick on the shaft between the bearings is often missing. The owner's maintenance manual does say to lube the distributor every 24K miles.

[Columbo]

Yes, vacuum advance is hooked up and I changed the line for good measure.  I changed the cap, rover, plugs, points, spark plug wires, set the valves, and I still get this annoying miss at idle.  It's random in frequency and driving me bonkers!

I don't notice it driving but it very well could be there.

I will fix the axial play regardless but do you think that could be causing the miss?

[Buckeye]

12 hours ago, Columbo said:

I changed the cap, rover, plugs, points, spark plug wires, set the valves,

 

sounds to me that you did not have miss at idle before you set valves and new point. Correct?

Did you set your timing afterword? Did you set dwell angle on the point and what you set it at?