I am in the process of rebuilding a Y block distributor and have it stripped down to the bare housing with just the bushing still in it. After a good cleaning I attempted to blow some air through the little oil port on the side of the housing, the one with the little flap. No air would go through. After looking a little closer it seems like there is no place for it to go since the bushing is press fit at each end and there is no hole in the bushing itself.

I am going to take a wild guess here and say that you put a couple of drops of oil in the port and the bushing material soaks it up ? Or should there be a small hole in the bushing to allow the oil to find it's way in ?

Pete

Pete: Don't know, but possibly it was re bushed before & they didn't drill an oil access hole? Was there an oil felt in the opening? Since you are rebuilding it, I'll mention that my 57 & up distributor may have a worn cam. That was suggested to me when I questioned why I was unable to get full dwell readings. However, I've never seen a spec for the cam so it's a ?? It's a NAPA Canada rebuilt, but it's unlikely they ever replace the cams.

Paul

I've been meaning to ask about the same issue for a long time.  Had a dist. out, shaft removed, and couldnt see anywhere that oil was supposed to exit from the housing oiler.  Filled the little flap covered port with oil and propped it in a position for oil to stay in port and drain.  Two days later no drainage.  Had a similar experience with a different dist. more recently.

Mike, located in the Siskiyou mountains, Southern, OR 292 powered 1946 Ford 1/2 ton, '62 Mercury Meteor, '55 Country Squire (parting out), '64 Falcon, '54 Ford 600 tractor.

Never mind, got the answer off the FE forum. As I suspected the bushing material wicks up the oil. So everybody go out to the garage and give your old distributors a couple of drops of oil and make it happy !

Pete