After reading “the Book”, decided I had better take a run at the
distributor in my 76 XJS. No great surprise, it has the Lucas
Distributor. I was a little concerned after reviewing the portion which
detailed methods (and success/failure rates) for the removal of the
trigger disk from the shaft. Seems they have a history of “Easy removal
in 50 pieces or more”. Well, the point is, I successfully removed mine
(God protects fools). Thought you might be interested in the method I
used. (the ones presented didn’t seem to have that promising a success
rate… so nothing to loose)
At any rate. The methods presented described various ways of
restraining & prying and applying pressure equally to the brittle disk.
The method I used, has proven fairly effective in other situations, So
what the heck…
Once the distributor was removed from the car, and the various c-clips
& washers were out of the way. I found there was a considerable varnish
build up on the shaft. This was bound to foul the removal process. So,
remove as much of that crud as possible. A little steel wool or emery
cloth works wonders. Then, on to the “Process” By supporting the
weight of the distributor by grasping the trigger disk, I simply rapped
on the top end of the distributor shaft repeatedly with a piece of
hardwood. A plastic hammer may do the job, but my only concern there
would be that it may provide too much force at impact. But, with a
little care, should provide the same results. Anyway, after a few
minutes of rapping and tapping, I had the intact disk in hand. I should
mention that once I had the top of the distributor shaft, flush with the
top of the disk, I placed a brass drift into the center of the shaft so
I could tap it all the way through. If you have a small piece of
tubing, pipe, or even a long reach socket that would fit into the center
and fit around the screw head, rather than on top of it, this should do
the same job, and still protect the screw head. By using the brass
drift, I caused no damage to the screw inside which connects the upper
half to the lower half. To clarify an additional point. I held the
distributor clear of the work bench, so that it didn’t impact the bench
with each strike. It’s simply an inertia method of removal. The
flexion of your arm cushions the blows so that very little of the impact
force is applied to the disk. It is instead transferred fairly
completely into the shaft & distributor body, whose own weight now in
essence try to pull themselves free of the plastic disk.
Well, that's about the best I can do for describing how I did this.
Hopefully, someone out there will find it of benefit.
Oh.. You know that previous statement I made about God & Idiots..
Well, I found my centrifugal advance was still functioning, although not
quite as freely as I’d like… Found the well documented layer of
varnish on everything. But, all-in-all, not nearly as bad as I was
expecting.