Anyone ever come across a koked up distributor shaft? I thought I had a bad condensor cause the car wouldn't start and run, it wanted to... but turned out the shaft of the distributor was tight in the body. Its a factory single point delco distributor. I noticed something was wrong when I got it to idle with distributor advanced, I blipped throttle and distributor physically moved to the retarded position (as far as it could go). I disassembled it and cleaned it out and its all good now, just what a goofy thing to discover.
Ive taken apart cast iron Chevy V8 distibutors where it was a bear to get the shaft out.Soak in penetrating oil,and tap up,and down for days to free the shaft.I can see how it could happen
watched that show a couple weeks back. i had a couple distributors in the past that had locked or almost locked, soaked them in marvels mystery oil and got them moving again. sold them at a swap meet after that.
That varnish like build up is tough, but I have found that a liberal dose of WD40 and working the shaft back and forth will get then out quickly.
Man you guys are funny, I guess a better term would be "carboned" up. Yes I sprayed some penetrating oil in it to get the shaft out, used a brass bottle brush to clean (and scotch brite for the shaft) its all good now. Koked (coked) I guess is just a turbocharger term. Ill need to update my usage...