Distributor gear

[Danielson]

Hello all first post, have found alot of info on here but didnt see my problem.
I have an 85 and I keep shearing off the roll pin, has happend 3 times this past year. The gear just slides on and off the shaft, all the teeth are fine. Is there a way to measure to see if I just need a new gear or if I need a new distributor. Moneys a little tight right now so if I can get by with out having to buy a new distributor that would be great.

[Gator]

Dont shoot the messenger.....but i had the same issue, tried alot of different things and the only thing that worked was a new dist.

[Danielson]

Thanks.... Yea was fearing that. What dist. did you go with? was it the MSD or one from a parts store?

[Gator]

Im not 100% sure, but i dont think MSD makes a "drop-in" replacement for us.

In any event, I bought a rebuilt one from Ford.

[NavySVO]

Im not 100% sure, but i dont think MSD makes a "drop-in" replacement for us.

They don't....yet

[stottpie]

i thought mallory makes one?

i got mine from autozone, they're really not that expensive and come with a new stator.

i'd also highly recommend replacing the gear with a bronze one from esslinger, that will cover all your bases.

edit: yes, mallory makes one

link removed

[NavySVO]

i thought mallory makes one?

The initial question was whether MSD makes one for the SVO, and they do not.

The Mallory Distributor in that picture is for a points type ignition, not a Thick Film Ignition using Hall Effect Stator.

[NavySVO]

i'd also highly recommend replacing the gear with a bronze one from esslinger, that will cover all your bases.

You will also have to go with Esslinger's Aux shaft when using the bronze gear...if you want continued operation

[Danielson]

Went by the local ford and they dont have motorcraft reman or any dist. so went to napa and ones going to be here in the morning, 147 after tax. comes with a new mod. so I should be back on the road tomorow. thanks for the help

[TheViking]

I went the NAPA route and less then 1000 miles later the gears sheared off and I had to pull the motor. So I would check the wear pattern carefully when you install it.

[Pat_in_L.A.]

MSD makes one (or used to make one) but it has been a pain in the butt. It wouldn't even fit in to a bare engine block, since the shaft wasn't the correct size or length. I was on a conference call with the MSD engineer and Mitch regarding the problem, and he (MSD guy) was pretty much a useless idiot.

[skippy]

The distributor gear and auxillary shaft are a matched set, you need to go to the junkyard and pull the gear and auxillary shaft off any ford 2.3 motor preferably non turbo and bolt it on. It will be a 30 min job an hour max. As far as shearing the pin your distributor or auxillary shaft is going out. Replace them as a pair, 2nd thing it could be is a high volume oil pump or a failing oil pump. Try the 1st recommenation if that doesnt fix it, the oil pump is going out. I bought a esslinger auxillary shaft and bronze gear there a good product however they only last 10-15k miles max before you have to buy a new bronze gear.

Also shine a flashlight where the distributor goes down to make sure there is no rubbing of the gear on the block, sometimes just a little off and it can cause an issue. How many miles are on the car? What oil weight are you using? Does it have a stock oil pump? And when I mean stock i mean not high volume and not high pressure. Anything other than stock causes issues.

Another way to check a faulty auxillary shaft is if when you drive down the road if it shimmys at times, or if the timing varies a little when timing the car and setting base timing.

[skippy]

Also get your parts at a junkyard, you only need the distributor shaft and the distributor gear and auxillary shaft, you can reuse all of your old distributor stuff probably just a bent shaft possibly.

[Danielson]

Last week I installed the one from NAPA, got it in time seemed to run fine. But when driving down the highway I could hear a noise from the motor. Gonna pull it back out this weekend, have not had much time latley. The car has 100k on it and as far as I know its the stock oil pump, I will try to get to the junkyard this weekend to look for a auxillary shaft. Thanks

[Raven855]

Double check the Napa distributor. Make sure that the shaft turns freely in the body. Also make sure that there was grease installed between the electronic module and the distributor body. It gets left out quite often. One thing these engines do not like is improper warm up. A lot of the distributor pin isssues come from thick oil and too many revs before it is warmed up. I used one of the reman units from auto zone, the shaft froze, took out the aux shaft and littered the internals of the engine with lots of little pieces. I have since done some automation work at their reman facility, I will never buy another auto zone product after seeing this facility. The return box is worth more than their product. One of the things that happens is the front retainer plate for the aux shaft wears allowing movement of the shaft. If the gear on the aux shaft is knife edged, that is a good indication of the problem.