engine and drivetrain Cracked dizzy cap or what ? Has history of shattering caps

[sheggaw]

This car has a history of shattering dizzy caps.

Last saturday, worked on a symptom that we thought was fuel starvation at the begining. Changed carb, refuled with premium and the problem was still there. Went on to look on electrical issues and changed the rotor, points and condensor (plugs with the plug wires are good). Cap looked ok until we found out there is a small crack on it. After all the replacements, the car ran ok but still idles rough, bogs down b/n 2K-3K and very hesitant within that range. The carb is a 32/36 manual choke in very good shape. Also checked the plugs and are black. Can it be the distributor cap, spark some how escaping through the carck? The engine is a rebuild engine, and the distributor is from a 1600, is that a red flag? Or could the distributor be the culprit. As a matter of fact, one day few months ago, the cap shattered in pieces for some unknown reason. Because of this stupid problem, we missed out on the PUMPKIN DRIVE in so.cal

[SteveJ]

Sometimes a shattered distrib cap can be from faulty motor mounts. The motor moves around and the distrib cap gets whacked on the firewall.

For the rough running, when was the last time the valves were adjusted?

My tii was running/idling rough. I suspected all the usual items and even adjusted the timing. Later on I did a valve adjustment and the damn thing started purring like a kitten.

[Guest Anonymous]

I had a rock and roller from motor mounts and I have also heard that the motion can crack the cap from hitting the fire wall. In my case I had the driver side mount in UP_SIDE down which softened up the perfectly good mount enough just from the goofy orientation to drop the engine rocking frequency into the idle speed of the engine. If it can be screwed up I have done it.

Have fun

[c.d.iesel]

...the distributor Cap broke

when you SLAM=SHIFTED at redline and the motor jumped on the fagged motor/trans mount - wacking the dist. cap against the fire wall - "***!!@@#@" !

and or the distributor is not seated correctly in it's housing,

and the timing is adjusted by gee-by-guess method ?

or the rwong rotor is being used and also not pushen down

correctly onto the shaft , or the shaft is missing retaing ring and the shaft is floating upwards .....?