Already hit my first brick wall with Duraspark swap...

The dist. is off some kind of (can't remember what exactly) '83 Mercury that had a run of the mill 250. I'm trying to put it in a '74 250.

The distributor slides in good and then bottoms out before it's completely in?

I've tried everything, it won't go in. Anyone had this problem? Dan? Maybe I need to swap the gears or something?

 

Sure it ain't binding up on the oil pump shaft? Make sure the 83 dizzy uses the same size shaft as your 74 dizzy ...

 

it may be a difference in block construction.was this a fuel injected motor?you should have asked for an interchange list from the junkyard.and please don't yell at me about my spelling i am old,fat,lazy and sensitive!!!!!!!

 

This was a carburated car. The blocks look identical from memory.

I just tired to put the original points dist. back in and it's doing the exact same thing with the same gap! :16suspect :confused:

The shafts are the exact same diameter and length. The gears have the same # of teeth.

Did yours just drop right in Dan?

 

It may be too new. I would go with a '74-'77 distributor (which is what I did on my 302)...

*Edit* Okay, well if your old one is doing the same thing, it must be an alignment problem...

 

Bad news .... Ford did not offer a 250 in any of it's 1983 cars ..... However, they did offer a 200 ..... must have been that ...

Good News ... a 1983 200 dizzy is the same as a 1977 Maverick 250 Dizzy ... and that is what I am using ...


Now ... here is the $1,000,000 question .... Do you have power steering? I had to grind a small chunk of metal out of my Power Steering Bracket to get my distributor to seat since there wasn't enough clearance for the larger cap ... Good luck ...

 

are you sure it wasn't a 200 that it came from?, go to the parts store and get them to pull one for a 200 and a 250 and compare them

 

So if your old one is not going all the way in, Dan may be right about the oil shaft.

Patience, Grasshopper. Patience. Don't get in a hurry and make ding-dang double sure you are getting the dizzy on the oil shaft correctly.

 

Old one doing the same thing? Didn't drop a socket in there did yah? ... Can you get it to drop at all ... forget about the timing for now ... just spin that sucker and see if it drops ... if it does ... you can take a small socket on an extensions and rotate the pump shaft a couple of degrees at a time until it drops at the correct timing ...

Also ... if I remember correct ... there is little tolerance on the bottom of the shaft ... it must drop in at the perfect angle or it will bind ...

 

If this is the case, then the 'stem' of the dizzy probably isn't going over the oil pump hex.

The hex to the pump leans to one side and the dizzy cannot 'envelope' it (for lack of a higher education).

Work it around a bit. I've even had to (lightly) tap mine on before.

edit: The info I gave was the case on a 302 I have. It just sounds too similar for it not to be the same prob.

 

if the teeth are meshing in the cam or what ever the gear hits slowly turn the engine by hand to see if it will drop in that way.i have done this on chevies and fords before but make sure the gears are meshing by trying to turn the dist. shaft by hand if it won't turn it should be meshing together.

 

It's in! Don't ask me what I did... I just pulled it out and tried it a few times while rotating the shaft. On on the 5th try it dropped in! :bananaman :bananaman

It dosen't appear to be "exactly" on the same tooth as the old dist., but I can easily turn the dist. for it to line up just right. I think it may be a tooth off, but it won't drop in if I rotate it to the next tooth so I'll have to see what I can do. It could just be my imagineation... I'm going to loosely just wire everything up and see if it will fire.

Man, I was really starting to get worried that it wasn't the right dist.

I do loose my patience pretty quickly I guess. I appreciate all the help!

 

You're how old? Seventeen? You are still developing patience.

You are wise enough to seek advice before getting out the big hammer and that will help increase your patience.

 

It runs! Man, what a diffrence! I still got a few little bugs to work out, but holy crap it runs so smoooooth. No more putt...putt...puttputt...putt at red lights anymore. It just sits there and purrs along.

And the increase in power is very noticeable.

I still have a few bugs to work out here and there. If I push the gas past half way down it falls on its face and starts hesitateing. I need to play with the timeing some more, and I haven't done anything to the plugs yet either. I'm going to go buy some new ones tomarrow and gap them correctly. The plugs that are in there have had very rough life in the short time they have been in there.

I am very impressed with the way it runs so far.

 

Yup .. a very worthwhile upgrade!