I do not know the name of the points, I should.  It does have the fiber plate and not plastic and the lobes are greased.  It has been doing this points thing for some time.  I pulled the dist apart and cleaned up the breaker plate, re-greased it. (it is a heavy duty plate) with bearings.  It ran fine for a while and I parked for a week.  Went out to start it and the points were completely closed.  Both set screws were tight.  Most bizzare thing I have ever seen.  I readjust them and the car fires right up.  The shaft itself is in good shape and did not have any bends in it.  The amount of play in the shaft concerns me but perhaps they are to do this.  The mechanic drove it for a week and half before he could get it to act up.  The harmonic balancer was loose and they tightened it all back up.  Readjusted the timing and started up.  One other thing he told me is when the points go closed it throws the timing of the car off.  This is all just out of reach of my shade tree mechanic ability to figure out.

I would not think it would be the timing chain either.

When I have the car running it is a smooth as glass!

I'll second that motion and add that if you'll send the distributor to someone who understands all that's been said, he will find the issue and, if it's possible, fix it. Also you might consider a Pertronix or other electronic triggering unit AFTER you discover the issue with the distributor. Points are pretty much passe` at this point in time. 

We found the harmonic balance loose and tightened it up.  Now we still are having problem with the timing.  We will be checking to see if this balancer has that rubber insert which might allow for slipage or not.  I had a new distributor gear sent and we installed it.  Still having problems with the timing and points closing.  Guess this puts us into the distributor itself category.

Wondering if I switch to pertronix would I still need to mess with rebuilding the distributor?  Is still use of the vacuum advance if you go with electronic points?

Appreciate your comments.

Rod

P.S. Work done so far: points, distributor gear, tightened harmonic balancer, new vacuum advance, VA tubing, carb rebuilt, push rods....

RB

If your Bird has the correct pulley, the timing marks are on the pulley, not on the damper ring.  Ring slippage has no effect on your timing marks.

RB

I picked the dist. up form the mechanic yesterday and I could hold onto the gear end and still rotate the rotor a good 10 degrees.  Now this one has the mechanical tach inside it so I guess it is possible there are actually 2 parts to the shaft but I always thought it was one long shaft.  Shows what I know.

Anyone have an exploded view of a 57' Bird 312 Dist? 

Will be in Colorado tomorrow.  Hopefully that is all the problem is.

R

When you hear hoofbeats you look for horses before you look for zebras.

I checked this by removing the plate and then attaching the points and condensor.  The plate on this particular car is almost 1/4" thick and there is no screw that protrudes far enough down to touch anything.  At least I did not think so.  I will pass this onto Terry's Midtown Service in Fort Collins. ~ thanks

I would have totally agreed with you except when they would close, I woudl try to move the unit with my hand, just to check for this, and the dumb things were tight as can be.  I do think there is a problem in the plate itself.  It seems to have some unusual movement in it.  Since this plate looks so much different than other plates I have seen, I am just not sure it is to move like this or not.  My initial guess is it should only move back and forth to allow for the vacuum advance.  Thanks for your help.  I will pass this onto Midtown Service.

Rod

pegleg (8/6/2009)

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Being in Colorado is undoubtedly the problem, no question. The rotor is SUPPOSED to move in relation to the shaft. It is two pieces, controlled by the weight and spring mechanism known as the mechanical advance. This moves the rotor ahead when the engine RPM inceases, which advances when the plug fires. This is because as the engine speeds up, there is less time for the mixture to fire, so they light the fire earlier in the cycle.

Everyone I have seen is like that as well.  I was surprised when I would hold onto the gear end I was getting movement at the top.  Now what I do not know is if this particular dist is actually made of more than one shaft because of the mechanical tach that is located about 4" down from the end of the rotor end.  The tach actually attaches to the side of the dist.  Do any other Fords have this?  My 60' ford with a 292 does not.

Hope to hear something from Midtown Service today.  Hopefully a simple fix.  Missing all this great Missouri summer weather to drive it and it is just not the same thing driving in a Saturn! ~Rod

The tach gear is pinned to the same shaft as the drive gear and has nothing at all to do with the advance mechanism or the points mounting plate.  It only drives the tach.  Some large trucks in the '60s had tachometers but their scale only went to about 3500 rpm.

Why don't you just borrow someone's 57 or later tach to see if it solves your problem. I assure you it is not too short as I have a Blue Thunder intake on my 55 Bird with a non tach driven dizzy (57 or later). I bought a Mooneyes 3 3/8" 0-6000 rpm tach to replace my old gear driven one. I had to modify it slightly to fit in the T-Birb bezel but it looks like it was made for the Bird. It is made by Classic Instruments.

With a little recurve on the stock dizzy, and a Pertronix installed, it works perfectly