As the 68 E type I acquired did not have a distributor, I bought a Petronix one. Now I find that it will not go down far enough in hole to engage the drive. The problem appears simply to be that the two teeth on the bottom of the shaft line up exactly through the center line of the shaft, whereas the drive shaft has offset slots
I searched files and couldn’t find anyone reporting an identical problem
My question is did the supplier just send me the wrong model, or an I doing something wrong?
Sounds like they have sent the incorrect model, talk to the supplier. Jaguar did not change the style of drive dog on the XK engine.
I’m not sure if they come with the correct dog or if you’re meant to swap it from a Lucas unit. You might want to ping their support person.
My Petronix distributor was truly a drop in replacement. No swapping of parts.
You tried getting it to fit while turning the rotor through 360 degrees?
Please Ignore my original post as I made a mistake. I found that I had to press very hard on the distributor body to get its teeth to engage the drive slots. Apologies for wasting your time.
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Don’t fret. You didn’t waste anybody’s time. I think virtually everybody here enjoys trying to help people with their car problems.
Glad to hear its a simple fix.
Wrong distributer… as it should go in 180 degrees off, as we often see happening.
LLoyd
It’s not what you look at that matters. It’s what you see.
Henry David Thoreau
Lloyd, I don’t understand your comment about 180 degrees off. Would you please elaborate. Thanks
Another related question. I expected the distributor would fit into the drive slots only one way. But I find it goes with, say, the rotor pointed up and also different by 180 degrees with the rotor pointed down.
Is this normal? If so, what is the purpose of the off set slots in the drive?
To ensure the distributor is installed in the proper orientation. This assumes, of course the drive dog is installed in the proper orientation.
I can only assume, given your original problem of being unable to get the distributor to engage at all, and having to force it in, and the fact that you can now get it to fit in two orientations 180 degrees apart means that you have a symmetric drive dog on your Pertronix distributor, and by forcing it you have made it fit (after a fashion) either way. This will probably destroy the bearings in the distributor in short measure if you operate the engine. I would recommend removing the distributor and measuring the dog to see if it is offset or not. If not, then you should either Pertronix to see if they’ve sent you the wrong model, and/or remove the dog from your original Lucas distributor (having first confirmed that it is offset) and fit it to your Pertronix. Good luck!