Team MightyBoy

Driving the rocket home this arvo found me playing with the choke and throttle to keep it from stalling in traffic, I adjusted the distributor a little and the engine started to sound better but then continued to get worse down the road. On inspection I found this on the distributor...
I assumed the wire came from under the points screw and attached it there but the engine wouldnt even pop or fart, just kept turning over..
have I got this wrong? Where should the wire go and is it just an earth?

That wire shouldn't be there. Looks like someone previously connected the points earth wire incorrectly and it has snapped off.

Ok then, but they go to different spots, one down to an insulated screw that goes through the distributor body and to the coil and the snapped one goes to ground from the screw in the corner of distributor.

So this is how my distributor is wired currently, is this correct and could someone post up some photos of a standard distributor internals with how it should be wired? There isn't anything in the Service manual That I can find.

I did a write up in the diy threads for an electronic ignition upgrade, that is another solution aswell.

800beast wrote:Ok then, but they go to different spots.

That's exactly my point. Someone has put the earth lead from the points to the wrong spot, and the movement of the vacuum advance has sheared it off. Whoever installed the next set of points didn't bother removing the stray lead.

Hmm, I must have been working with EFI too long. Turns out I was completely wrong. The workshop manual shows that the broken lead in your picture should be connected to the screw that holds the points in (not the adjusting screw).

Sorry for giving you the wrong info!

see pic goes under screw that holds points