Wonky MSD Distributor

Coming home from the last truck show I noticed I had oil pooled in the little valley at the back of the timing cover. I cleaned everything up and ran the truck in the driveway for a while but no sign of oil. Took the truck for a rip the other day and when I got home the oil was back. Running my finger around I found oil on the wires coming out of the distributor (MSD 85805). Took the cap off and found oil everywhere inside. Well coincident to this when I was checking the timing recently it was wobbling (best term I could think of) 3 or 4 degrees, since the distributor is locked out it seemed damn strange. Ordered a new MSD Pro Billet distributor (8577) and big cap and threw them on yesterday, timing was rock solid and the oil leak is gone but instead of oil while taking it out for a beating now I see anti-freeze! It's pooling in the same spot so first thought was it may be the gasket on the water pump/timing cover, check the bolts and everything is snug. Clean up and take it for a rip again, no oil but more anti-freeze. Check the hose from the water pump to the manifold and it looks fine, check all other fitting and they seem fine, clean it up and idle it for a while, nothing, hold the rpm up and nothing. Take it for a rip (rip - definition, launch in a big smokey burnout and shift to second and at 5500 shift to drive and hold until run out of road) again and the anti-freeze is back but no sign as to where  . So decide to just do a short rip in front of the shop and pull into the bay and look, turns out the coolant temp fitting was spraying at full load but would dry all but the puddled anti-freeze by the time I stopped. Cleaned the fitting and some new teflon tape and all is good. The joy of chasing leaks  , now box up the old distributor and see what happened to it.

The best part is I was at a friends shop who is a major gearhead and is good enough to open his shop to us when he is closed to get some odd jobs done,  the neighbours are about an 1/8 mile up the road (coincidence, I think not) and they seem to be used to some of our tuning sessions.

Not as exciting as a track car but thought I would share the frustration

I pressurize the cooling system through a valve stem installed in a radiator cap....Sounds like your method is more fun.  

Dave C. wrote:I pressurize the cooling system through a valve stem installed in a radiator cap....Sounds like your method is more fun.  

Your method just makes far to much sense and has no chance of things going horribly wrong  

i bought a new one with a bent shaft.some of the msd stuff is junk but what do you buy?  

cool40 wrote:i bought a new one with a bent shaft.some of the msd stuff is junk but what do you buy?  

Buddy of mine bought one w/bent shaft. Hard s.o.b to get in and out before he found the problen. 

bbf-falcon wrote:

cool40 wrote:i bought a new one with a bent shaft.some of the msd stuff is junk but what do you buy?  

Buddy of mine bought one w/bent shaft. Hard s.o.b to get in and out before he found the problen. 

mine was easy to find.it was so bad the damn cap would move with it running.i told the guy i got it for i'd send it back but "it runs fine so i'll use it"? a few weeks later the bushing was beat out and the missing started.big POS!