horst

This fall I expect to take the P-car for a couple of trips, several Ks long. I was just thinking- what if somewhere along the line, the dist belt breaks? Obiously I could not take it apart at the roadside. Would taking the dist lead from the coil to the slaved dist be a good fix for a couple of thousand miles? Or perhaps taking out the rotor of that dist?

joey bagadonuts

How about carrying one of these emergency fan belts from Performance Products? $17.95 for some serious peace of mind sounds like a bargain.

Wikkid911

My distributor belt broke once when I was many miles from home. There was a pinking sound under full load. The car still drove ok so it should get you home. I think thats why there is a twin distributor set-up.

Heres hoping it doesn't happen!!!

Sailswish

I don't think the emergency fan belts can be used for the dist. It's tiny in there. It was a PITA just having my mechanic check mine for wear. He just replaces the whole dist if the belt goes up. $350 installed with core return.

Mark in Baltimore

I have an entire set of belts in case one fails. I was worried that one might fail on my way to a far away DE. Even if I can't make the repair on the roadside, at least I have the belt in hand so a local garage can attempt the repair.

bj

Disconnect the battery voltage at the coil by disconnecting the ground lead that way you won't have high voltage trying to find its' way to ground. Insulate the disconnected ground lead just to ensure it doesn't short something out. Why not replace the belt before you go while in the comfort of your own garage if you suspect it may break - chances of a new one breaking is less likely.

Bill
90C2

horst

it's fairly new. Just a "what if" question.

TMH

Horst,

My understanding (and I am sure I will be corrected if wrong) is that damage can occur to a cylinder if the belt breaks and the rotor continues to make contact within the cap. If this occurs then mis-timed sparks will fire in that particular cylinder.

If your belt breaks and you remove the rotor from the second distributor there should be no significant (long term) detrimental issues (other than not having the same level of performance out of the motor while running on only one plug per cylinder).

Good luck,
Tom

Lorenfb

A simple solution is to unplug the ignition module that drives the stopped
rotor. Just press the release and pull the plug off the module. As memtioned
previously, it's not a good idea to let the coil wire hang and cause a high
voltage discharge to something.

Use this approach to troubleshoot ignition/running problems. Running on
only one spark plug per cylinder won't damage anything, just a little loss
of power.

Good Luck
Loren

horst

Kinda what I thought. Thanks. Just unplugging a coil is not a good idea. When working on an old breaker point system, if I need to crank it to say do a compression test, I ground the coil. What with all the sensitve electronics on a p-car I didn't think that would be such a swift idea.