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General Tech Quick Dist question. TR3/4 vs Heralod

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J

jeep937

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I worked all week on my car to have it ready for a car show this week end. Right when I went to start it I blew up the dist. My car is a '65 TR4. A local guy has this dist on ebay for a Heralod. They look the same. Is it? Can I go pick this up and still make the show?
 
Not the same, but should be close enough to work. Listen closely for any knock or ping, though. You may need to back off a bit on the initial timing (but most likely not).
 
titanic said:
How does a distributor get blown up?
Berry
Click to expand...

Good question. When I bought one of my project cars it had pieces of the Lucas distributor housing held in place with RTV. I am guessing that the springs broke and the bob weights swung out far enough to hit the housing and bust it from the inside.

Back to the Herald distributor. As Randall and Andy said, it will fit and work but the advance curve is not likely to match what you had. It will certainly be good enough to use for a while but you may have to retard the timing. While you use the Herald distributor, talk to Jeff at Advanced Distributors and see if he can't rebuild your original TR4 one or sell you a reconditioned original one.
 
What specifically is wrong with the original distributor?

I have also never heard of a distributor "Blowing Up".

Vila
1933 Chevrolet
1962 Triumph TR4
1984 BMW 633 CSi
 
I saw an interesting "blow up" some years ago. Apparently a previous owner had dropped the nut from the points post down into the advance mechanism and left it there. The nut had been flying around inside, beating the dickens out of the inside of the housing and the advance mechanism, until it got jammed just right and exited through the housing.
 
Yeah, it appears that an advance weight came loose and caught in the spin ceasing it which then spun it around in it's clamped position ripping out the vac hose from the carbs and busting the top off a brand new Lucas Gold coil. It also stopped the motor dead in it's tracks. Pretty awesome really. Went to the british car show today and talked to a buddy about it and he said he had a box of 25D's at his shop right next to the show. He rode me over there on a motorcycle then we took the long way around in an awesome Alpine that had the crustiest 70's flake job on it. So awesome. He also gave me a new lead wire. The lead wire thing needs to be a loose type wire as opposed to the replace stiff wire in the dist he gave me. He said the stiff wire would not let the plate spin and advance the timing inside. Money in the bank. I'm gonna go through the dist and clean it up then install it in the car. tomorrow. Thanks for the help guys!
 
Out of curiosity... during what period of time and on what cars did Triumph use Lucas distributors? I am much more used to seeing the Delco distributors installed.
 
Thanks. I have a copy of Marcel's distributor list saved locally. I never thought to look there for years and model applications.
 
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