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Hey all, has anyone out there in clown car land ever installed one of these? I'm having some trouble installing the shutter wheel in my 009.

After breaking the first one because the ID was too small for the Bosch shaft, they sent me a couple of replacements. Very carefully working with a small rat-tail file, I've managed to open one up to where the shutter wheel fits snugly on the shaft, but all the slots in the wheel are about 15°-20° off from where the lobes on the distributor shaft sit. 

There is quite a bit of adjustment on the bracket that holds the optical pick up, but this just seems wrong to me. It seems the slots should line up with the cam lobes, so the distributor sits close to where a normal points/condenser distributor sits. 

Am I overthinking this? Do I just need to install it as is and let the cards fall where they may when I replace my standard distributor?

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@DannyP posted:

I'd not worry about it at all, then time it and it ends up where it ends up. As long as all the wires reach, who cares?

Re-indexing a distributor drive, engine in the car can be easy, or impossible. Watch out for the two thick washers under the drive, they can fall into the case.

The wires will reach just fine. I guess it's only going to be 20° difference, max. The instructions give very clear directions:

  • Set current dist. TDC cyl #1
  • R&R with trigger installed, set to #1
  • Start car and set timing. 

The trick is to get it right the first time because, according to posts on The Samba, is that you can't static time it like normal points because it will burn out the electronics.

it just seems weird to me that with thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of these sold for VWs over the years, the shutter wheel doesn't fit right out of the box, and be designed a bit better. 

 

Once again, thanks for your advice Danny. 

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