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Now for something completely different.

A video about how to build a Model A distributor.

Well great, Mitch, but wtf?

OK, OK, hear me out a minute. This is really a video about why a fake Bosch distributor banged out in three minutes in a Chinese ‘factory’ could not possibly do the job the original was intended to do. It is bound to fail by design.

Watch Model A guru Paul Shinn hand assemble an old school distributor and notice just how much hand-fitting, measurement, checking, and adjustment is required just to get the basics right. There are a dozen little things that need to be precise for what seems like a very simple device to work the way it should.

And the Model A dizzy doesn’t even have a self-regulating (centrifugal) advance mechanism like the Bosch does. In the Model A, the driver sets the spark advance manually as he motors along, with a little stalk on the steering column. (By the 1950’s, drivers had gotten all soft and flabby and expected everything to be done for them.)

Still, just to get the spark steady and uniform from one bang to the next, look how much measurement and calibration and rechecking and tensioning and polishing is required. How much of that do you think is being done in those Chinese factories?

Even the capacitors shipped with modern kits are made to just look like capacitors and are pretty inept at, well, capacitating.

Anyway, I thought this video was cool. Have a look if you’ve got 20 minutes to kill.



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Last edited by Sacto Mitch
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So... let's see what the cognosci here REALLY think about what dizzy should be running their VW air cooled flat 4s??  I have heard so much bad press about the Chinese 009s.  Relentless, and none of it especially flattering. I've been pounded to give it up.  Although I did fit the 009 with a magnetic (electronic) "points".  I'm going to say it works fine, although it was #2 installed, as #1 as delivered leaked oil into itself.  Anyway, #2 was installed and so far as I could tell has worked as well as it should/could.  Nevertheless, when I had a Mr. Pip tune-up a while back, he gave me the lecture on timing stability, and smooth advance behavior.  Etc. etc. I'll admit up front that I fully understand the advantages of a crank-fire triggered electronic system, as Mr. Pip uses hisownself. I figured, I'm not quite that far down the rabbit hole, but I admitted I'd look into a Magnaspark, from CB.  And so I did, right around the time they could not get any.  So I waited.  And then I waited some more.  And then I finally got one, complete kit w coil and wires and so on.  Plug and play . . .  And then waiting for the right moment to install.  Thinking all the while: if ain't broke, don't fix it . . .  Hmmm ...   Well, The chance arrived during my recent winter refurb activities.  [See other posts explaining about my broke transmission, now rebuilt.] So now I have the Magnaspark dizzy and coil and wires in there and guess what?  it works too.  I can't yet tell if anything is really different.  Maybe idle is smoother, but we also tweaked the carbs into better balance at the same time, so maybe that's it. Maybe both??  Looking at the timing light, I'm going to say that maybe the spark is more steady/consistent.  How that manifests into dashing through the Smoky Mountains, I will have to wait until this September to find out.

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Mr. Frazoo, lack of quality control doesn't mean that all examples will fail. It just increases the probability that some will.

Or, you might say, it ensures that all will fail to varying degrees.

Me, I'd rather do my gambling in the stock market than in an auto parts store.

I, too, endured a partially failed dizzy for a number of years. It had a 'Pertronix' label stuck on it, which meant the electronic bits were Pertronix, but the mechanical bits were the same as all the other Asian copies. I must admit the thing looked a lot on the outside like the Bosch unit in my old 2002. (When I sold that car after 23 years, the Bosch was still spinning happily away, sparking when appropriate, and having never been rebuilt.)

The faux Bosch in my Speedy was probably a lot like yours. The motor sort of ran OK, but it was never as smoove as I suspected it should have been. And I kept getting threatening letters in the mail from my carburetors' attorneys denying their clients had anything to do with the injuries I was suffering.

It turns out they were right. The new CB dizzy set things right, so now I can go after the carbs in court if they ever mess with me.

In my case, the more I drove this car, the more the intermittent miss started to bug me. It was like the squeaky floor in the apartment above you. You can live with it for only so long.

Happy motoring.

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Last edited by Sacto Mitch

Environment plays a role as well.  I had a Pertronix Flamethower biller setup that worked well for a lot of years, but eventually started to give me problems.  It eventually became so bad (sadly during a Tour de Smo' run - 2017, I think) that I had to take it apart on the road.  It turns out that the centrifugal advance springs had completely rusted away, and the weights were so rusty that they would stick in random positions.  The temporary fix was to use springs from ball point pens.  Seriously.

Of curse I live in a swamp (Charleston, SC)), so rust and mildew are common occurances.

You kids with your fancy distributors. When I was young we just had 4 wires and a hot nail to run across them. You better bet we learned all about timing back then. Did kinda make steering hard, and it only took once to learn not to drop that electrified nail in your lap... Bosch, Pertronics, MSD, bunch of softies.

Wires? You had WIRES?

Why, back in my day we lit off the charges in each cylinder by hand, usually with kitchen matches. Then the cool kids got all speedy doing it with the lit end of their Chesterfields. That was the real start of hot rodding!

We also had to pack each piston individually, usually with a mixture of coal dust and black powder. You better believe we got dirty doing it, too!

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