2007 at the Hammond Barn

[Phil Waterman]

i Bob

About getting technical good point. I've seen two variations on this that are I hope worth adding to the collective knowledge bank.

First – involves breaking the pin that locks the drive gear to the distributor shaft, driving down the road pin breaks engine coughs and bangs as the timing is lost and a quick look at the instruments shows the oil pressure dropping to zero while the engine is still turning. I didn’t want to kick the clutch in as I was going down hill and still wanted the brake boost. Pulled the truck over to side of road and had a pretty good idea that I had lost the distributor drive, confirmed by removing the cap and turning rotor. (The engine seemed to suffer no harm from this short period of no oil pressure while still spinning.)

Second – I have not seen but have heard of. While doing engine work on Chevy 261 mechanic wants to prime the engine with oil so he plugs oil filter lines and screws a pressure gage in to the supply port for the filter line on block to check pressure. Primes the engine with oil by the trick of drill and screw driver bit in distributor hole. Good oil pressure, in install distributor, start engine good oil pressure, engine seizes. We all hopefully know the reason beware of full flow oil filter systems.