interesting - he refers to the complete assembly as a 'circuit breaker' and 'points' are where the electrical contact is made. I've never heard that before but I sure as hell am not going to argue with Mr. Mallory!!!
Last car with points was about 1970, last one with a carb around 1985. It is quite possible that a 50 year old mechanic who has been working on cars for 30 years has never seen a set of points, and one 35 years old who has been working on cars for 15 years has never seen a carburetor.
Only my vintage motorcycle has points (called "contact breaker" in that context), for now. All of my other vehicles have gone electronic.
I ran a shop in town from 89-93, I did a lot of tune ups on points equipped cars. I'm 53. I think you have to be quite a bit younger than 50 to never have messed with them. I get a kick out of opening a box that's older than me, and installing a car part that was made by guys who probably mostly all passed on by now, and the part looks and works great.
Interesting thread Jim,I was looking for a small screwdriver in one of the small sections in my tool box and ran across not one but two points files,,haven't seen them in years. HRP
You knew the guy was a real mechanic if he had a points file in his shirt pocket. We don't have any mechanics anymore just parts replacers. Rebuild a carb?... hell no just order a rebuilt one and hope that the adjustments are close.
I had my '69 Ford shortbox with single barrel 300 /6 and three on the tree to a shop see about alignment. The Techs were marveling at the room to work and very simple engine compartment. The one employee embarrassingly went to pull my truck in on the rack and had no idea how to shift and asked if I could pull it in. They didn't have the tools or info for alignment ended up taking it elsewhere. The points info is very cool and now saved for future reference.
Point files became obsolete in the 60s when they started making points out of metal that is harder than the file.
I have more faith in my points than I ever did with electronic ignition. With proper tuning and maintenance points ign will give many trouble free miles. I have a dwell meter that is older than many posters on here. Only draw back to points is they will fry along with a coil if the key is left on too long.
Last vehicle I had with points was a '73 GMC 4X4 p'up w/sbc. But it was a hybid because I installed an early MSD box that actually triggered the coil when the points triggered the electronic "mystery" stuff in the MSD box. Scrapped out that truck due to rust, but the engine block and crankshaft are in the engine in BGII. Started learning about points on a bone stock '34 Ford 3wdw. Didn't learn a lot on it because the old "diving bell" dual point dist. required more knowledge and tools than just a point file and a feeler gauge to set properly. On those old Fords you were far better off to remove the dist from way down there onm the front of the engine and take it to a shop that had a dist. machine, or at least that fixture device some shops used. Then you had to be careful when reinstalling to get the offset tang turned the same as the offset slot in the end of the camshaft so the dist would seat "home " properly. Over a succession of years and vehicles, I learned a lot about points. A poiint file was good, but then you needed to get a finer finish with something with a fine abrasive, such as a piece of fine "wet or dry" sandpaper folded to get abrasive surface both sides,or even the striking surface from a pack of "book matches", in a pinch. and pull that thru a few times. Next you took a similar sliver made from a brown paper bag media, moistened it with carbon tetrachroride (try to buy THAT now, LOL) and repeated the passage btween the points Last came a similar piece of brown bag, dry.. In '57 or so, GM came out with the window dist that required a hgex wrench, plus new setting methods, eventually we all got dwell meters to get more precise with setting them.. Today's electronic stuff is a lot better from a standpoint of not requiring attention every 10K miles in a DD, and the higher voltages will fire plugs fine that wouldn't even crank and run in a points system. But when things go wrong, old farts like me are often longing for the simplicity of a points system when trying to fix it.
I get it man. Some things are hard to let go of. The thing is, electronic triggers are in every single vehicle now, and have been, for several decades. Since then, there have been exponentially more vehicle-miles traveled with them, than had been ever traveled by vehicles with points. If there were a systemic problem, we would have known it by now. If fact, the opposite is true. Electronic triggers are statistically dramatically more reliable than points, and that percentage rises by the mile. Keep what you like, but not for the wrong reasons. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Good info on points by all. I have one car with dual points (a 57 FI BelAir) and have learned to adjust them over the years with a dwell meter and blocking one set at a time. The car runs great and must stay as it is. Tried to show my kids how to adjust and use a dwell meter. They had little interest and thought "just go to electronic Pop". Times have changed.
how do you adjust the dwell on that dual point with no adjustment window? does it have to be done with a machine?...
Dwell is related to point gap. If you close the gap, you get more dwell. You can do it on the car, but you have to put it back together and check it with a dwell meter after you make and adjustment, then if it's still not right, you try again. It's a lot easier if you take the distributor out and put it on a machine. But that requires that your buddy's distributor machine is still working after all these years
Ditto on what Squirrel said, it's a eal pain in the ass to set on engine with dwell meter. First you have to set the dwell with one set of points either disconnected or blocked off. Then you gotta reconnect or unblock the other set, and set he dwell on them. One set @34*, both sets@38*, IIRC. Some claim they can do it all with feeler gauges,and you can, it just ain't as accurate.
Seem to remember seeing a picture of a Delco cap with two windows; didn't exactly make sense to me; based on the normal method of setting dual points.
I found three of these Autolite Point Guards in a box of ignition parts I bought years ago at a swap meet. I'm not quite sure how it works, but maybe like a variable or temperature sensitive resistor. The bakelite housing contains a light bulb with about .1 Ω resistance. The slower the engine runs, the brighter the bulb glows. The voltage drop between the coil and Point Guard increases as the engine speed decreases, reaching it's maximum when the points are closed and the engine is stopped, or a drop about 3 volts. I've run one on a 6V system for three years without an incident or any difficulty starting in 20° weather. It actually seems to work - until the filament in the bulb burns out. I remember seeing some old ignition coils with a light bulb built in the top or bottom under a cover. Same principle?
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