Distributor Surprise ????

[tst]

I have a customers cub in for repair, had to pull the governor for repair, reassembled and fired it up, set the timing, noticed that there was no advance on the timing with the engine rpms up, no big surprise, I have seen many where the advance weights are frozen, broken springs etc, so pulled the distributor, popped the points plate and SURPRISE!!!, no guts in the distributor, it has a straight shaft in it, never saw one like it before, I knew it had a mag at one time as it is a 49 cub and some time in its life it had been swapped for a distributor, what is powered by the C60 engine that does not use an advance system?????

[JoeB]

I think the gas start diesels like an MD had no advance in the distributor. The housings were the same through all the letter series. The stamps on the outside will reveal a little more info. There should be 2 letters like AA or 1 letter like J .

[Jim Becker]

From what I have been told, that shaft (and probably whole distributor) came from a late model 450 Diesel (gas start). The earlier gas starts had something like an 8 degree advance.

[tst]

thanks for the info, I had a 60 TD20 gas start/diesel combo, I can remember now that was apart and was like that also, just got my attention finding that in a cub

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

this doesn't help with your problem, but at Cubarama last year I was doing a seminar on ignition and distributor timing and advance, and since all my cubs have mags I borrowed one of the attendees tractors to do the timing with a light, and when I tried to demonstrate the advance it wouldn't advance. The rotor could be turned a little as is normal, but no advance when running. It would have been a great time to demonstrate what to check on one, but the owner that loaned me his cub was not there, and i did not want to take his distributor off and take it apart without his permission.

[rockfarmer]

Tim, don't know anything regarding your distributor, but have you ever seen one like this?

[Bill Hudson]

Tim,

I'm fairly sure that is a Prestolite (sp) distributor. Some of them were used on Cubs, although not often.

Bill

[tst]

Bill is correct, that is a prestolite

[Cubfriend]

I thought the Presolite mounted horizontally like the IH distributor. I have one that I bought off of a Cub parts vender and it does not have the 90 degree adapter. However I have seen a lot of Delco Remy distributors with the 90 degree adapter. (Farmall, AC, Oliver, etc.) I believe my Presolite has a tag on it and it is the correct part number for the Cub.

[rockfarmer]

Ya'll know your distributors. Are the 90 degree distributors any less reliable than normal ones?

[tst]

they are pretty rare, harder to get parts for depending what you need

[Bill Hudson]

Are the 90 degree distributors any less reliable than normal ones?

Tim,

I can't answer that one for you and I have no firsthand experience with them.

Bill