[L20068]

If you'll all remember, we were trying to troubleshoot why my car was pinging something fierce in the afternoon and not in the evening! Well I found the problem. It seems as though, now get this, the mechanical weights in the distributor were affeted by the heat and as the heat increased, something caused the weights in the dizzy to advance the timing, causing pre-detonation, also known as pinging.

A friend of mine suggested it off-handedly... "Maybe you should check your distributor, man..." and he knows next to nothing about cars. All these amazingly intelligent people here on the VMF, and some moron solves my problem /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

Sure enough, I slapped a new distributor in, and it doesn't ping whatsoever anymore.

But here's a new dilemma! Just what did all that pinging DO to my engine? Is there any way I can check on the damage without pulling the head?

 

[sharkmouth]

I'm glad your car isn't going to self destruct, but I doubt the new dizzy has the exact same advance curve the old one does....what it does have for a curve is probably closer to what you need.

If I may suggest....read up on adjusting the curve in your new dizzy to match your engine, and check for pinging during all temperatures....just about everyone believes best power occurs a bit short of pinging.

Diligence in this task will probably yield the best power your setup can produce

 

[whisperer]

Wern't there were several posts that told you to check, change, adjust your distributor on the last one? The chance of your advance weights being affected by the heat is about zero. Remember, you changed the whole distributor here, and along with that you changed the timing, however slightly, when you installed it.

If this is a Calif. car, do you have the two hose vacuum advance unit? If those hoses are reversed it will give you one of those "It pings while crusing until I step on the gas" type of problems.

It takes either too hot of cylinder, too advanced of timing or too lean of mixture to make an engine ping. Since yours was doing it when the air condions were hotter I'd first look at that, but that could just be the thing that pushes you into the "pinging" range from another problem.

OK, you fixed it by changing the distributor, cool. But the actual problem was likely one of the above, not the advance weights heating up.

 

[66conv6]

Hey Whisperer,

"If this is a Calif. car, do you have the two hose vacuum advance unit? If those hoses are reversed it will give you one of those "It pings while crusing until I step on the gas" type of problems. "

I had that problem on my 66 200ci that was using a 68 distributor with both mechanical and vacuum advance. I took it to a guy with a distributor machine who verified all was "working" but nothing else. He suggested I run it without the vacuum part and it made no difference. I replaced the vacuum bisket with no difference. This was always with a single vacuum hose. I eventually went to Pep Boys and bought a rebuilt vacuum only distributor (66). I can't remember if that solved the problem or the new engine rebuild did. The old engine had been .100" bored over.

Any comments?

 

[mgmradio]

I beleve that one of the things I sugested checking was TOTAL advance.
All these amazingly intelligent people here on the VMF, and some moron solves my problem

I think I'd rethink the moron part.If you don't undestand the advice you are given,there are many good books that will explain how an engine works,or you could always ask for more detailed answers.

 

[L20068]

I realize now that my post sounded condescending and ungrateful; I didn't intend it as such. I just was a lot upset that this guy solved my problem!

I did everything I could with the timing, and nothing helped. It really was just the distributor... I put the other one back in, and presto, pinging again. ake it out, replace it with the other one, and presto, no pinging... Same time of day, roughly the same temperature. *shrug*