The long story made short, the fun of owning vintage autos…
I’ve had a couple of other recent posts about water pump and thermostat. It seemed reasonable to me that while I had water pump, radiator, hoses, thermostat housing out of the way, this would be the best time to do some maintenance on the distributor… I mean since I can clearly see it and all… for history, this car had been my dads for the last 30+years, i encouraged him to buy it at a local auction and have helped him to maintain it while we restored his Alvis, my GT6, and maintained and worked on a seemingly endless list of other Alvises, MK2s, a Bentley still in the garage, as well as another XK140 in mid restoration. The 140 that has now moved to my garage as dad reaches 90 years and wonders how to manage all these cars, was used for many years as a daily driver and parts runner, so despite all the nice restorations going on, this one got whatever it needed to keep it running… and nothing more. Now that it has sat for 2 or 3 years I get to own and drive it… assuming I can get it around the block…
So lots of coolant leaks that lead to new hoses and now new water pump waiting to be installed. While at the water pump, why not look at the thermostat… turns out to be incorrect so new thermostat also waiting to go in… then to the distributor while in the neighbourhood… quick change out of cap, points, rotor, condenser planned… but removing the cap, the internals look a bit dirty and low tension lead looks extremely delicate to put it mildly!
So now the quandary… do i push on and pull the distributor? This is how accidental restorations happen!
Seriously… can I change out the low tension lead without pulling the dissy?
Can I make up the lead myself or is there a part number?
Or is a delicate lead acceptable?
Presumably if I pull the dissy there will be gaskets and or o-rings needed to reinstall…
Need sane thoughts before I just yank the entire engine and tranny and get on with the job!
