Today I have had some luck, the trigger wheel has been removed. Taken a number of days (soaking in penitrene, pressure etc. See pics.
Michael
Michael
Now for the mechanical advance mechanism. Completely frozen. Will persevere again to free them up. Probably will need to disassemble.
Michael
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Very nice efforts on your work on this distributor - would you be able to post a picture of the spring attachment (the section that is in the shadow of the shaft) - also, when you find out what liquid works best at decomposing the rust dimples on the plates please post - thanks, Tex.
Y’know, I think that trigger wheel is supposed to be white.
The frozen part is typically the rotor carrier shaft on the distributor shaft – which is very thin inside the rotor carrier shaft. Dump a bunch of penetrant down the center hole and let it sit. And remove those springs first before you damage them.
You know, all this work and it will still be an unreliable Opus unit. I had an XJ12C that caught fire and it was easier to exchange mine in for a full new REOPUS kit from SNG Barratt. It looks just like Opus on the outside, is Lucas CEI on the inside. No disk with ferrite rods, no reed switches… and it works when the engine is hot. You’d need DAB113HEF for the fuel injection version.
https://www.sngbarratt.com/English(US)/#/US/parts/4b3bba83-8d6b-44d8-b5d9-29a3d4722ad4
You know I was watching how to service one on YouTube , and there’s a great video , but the one he pulled looked to be about the same colour.
Opus, Lucas, Marelli. The achilles heels of Jaguars?
Hi Terry, No problem. Could be a few days, “time filler in-between other things” ,
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Hi Tex, I have taken a pic of the spring attachment and one with the shaft & springs
removedI used penetrene to loosen all, but it didn’t remove the rust dimples. I used a combination of heavy duty grease remover and extremely fine wet and dry sandpaper.
Michael
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Yes done that. Thanks. While I have it stripped down I’d like to check the vacuum mechanism. Can you point me in the right direction for this? Michael
Test with a hand vacuum pump (MightyVac); most start moving around 5” and fully by 12-15”. Lacking the MightyVac, just hook up to a vacuum line on a running engine (once you find a port that has vacuum)- should move smoothly when vacuum applied, and released.
Check out British Vacuum Advance; they rebuild and manufacture quality replacements to original spec. No affiliation…
Thanks Robert. Will look for a vacuum line in one of my vehicles.
Thanks Michael - seeing the spring connecting spots is very helpful - any luck with a “rust removal” system that you found works best on those parts inside the distributor?
Forget all that, just hook a hose to it and suck on it with your mouth. You should be able to pull it to full advance. Once fully retracted, stick your tongue on the end of the hose and quit sucking. It should stay retracted. If it returns to unsucked position, it has a leak. Note that the later H.E. vacuum modules had a deliberate built-in leak, but I don’t think yours does.
BTW, for the benefit of all those following this thread: That centrifugal advance mechanism looks completely different than the one in the H.E. Which is odd, since Roger Bywater assures us they do much the same thing. This is the pre-H.E. mechanism.
I believe the thicker advance spring is a little bit stretched. See that one coil that’s wider than the others? I would suggest using a pair of pliers to squeeze the coils all the way to the point where they stack on one another; that might work better with two pairs of pliers, one on either side of the end loops. Such compression should permanently deform the spring a little bit back toward its original length. Not calibrated or anything, but closer to what it should be. And then try to avoid re-stretching it when reinstalling.
Hi Tex, I had to use fine wet and dry sand paper to remove the excess rust dimples. Thought about some diluted hydraulic acid, but that may enhance the dimples. The wet and dry at least gave me a smooth finish, as I recon the moveable weights would need as least friction as possible to move on. I used the same idea on the weights as well. They were also covered in fine rust.
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Thanks for that Kirbert. Will check it out.
Thanks Michael for the details - hoping to do this same process on my 86 since it has been idle for so long.