Took the car out for the fist time this afternoon, treated it to a wash and rolled up gratiot to just make a little noise eveything was fine until I was about a mile away from home..there was, all of a sudden this noise and the engine started losing power, it sounded like I lost a rocker or stud definetly had a cylinder or two out so it was running and I decided to push it to try~n make it back. After pulling into the drive it started poping thru the exhaust and carb BAD........popped the hood and found this after a sec or two,
The cap & rotor have been on there two years at least, I would think the rotor came apart or loose to cause this carnage

 

ouch dude, is the cap loose? I've never heard of that happening.

I live in Ypsilanti / Ann Arbor btw

 

Nope, cap is tight..something inside came out or apart.. btw-I`m in eastpointe a suburb of detroit. I gonna take it apart soon, I`ll make time shortly, after it cools.

 

the rotor blew apart is the only fesible thing.

 

what's the rotor look like?
i had one twist the contact like a pretzel one time!man!i thought i'd toasted everything!replaced the rotor and it ran like new.this happened at around 6k.never seen one come apart though.maybe it did vibrate loose?
Eric B

 

Well, I (the mechanic) still have yet to get the darn cap off, the STB has allen headed bolts at the crowl and I can`t find my set..I will have it apart tonight after work..I feel pretty comfortable going to the speed shop and buying the replacement cap and rotor, I`m hoping that`s all it`ll need, hoping

 

That is really wierd. The cap terminals appear to be intact, which you would expect to be the parts that would get in harm's way. There also appears to be a crack 90 degrees away from the blowout.

Anticipating your update.

 

Looks like it came loose, hard to understand since it has been on there for over two years no problem, one screw is sitting there unattached and the other is MIA...the rotor somehow just sat there on the flywieghts with nothing holding it, Humbling experince for me, just can`t understand why or how..I must have installed thousands of these through out the years with no incidents..oh well 20 for a cap and 10 for a rotor and all should be alright..and a squeeze of loctite I think, just to be safe.

 

Oh Shat..sorry for the oversized crappy pic`s, I though they were resized right it`s been one of those weeks

 

There isn't much room in there for loose stuff, is there?

I've seen it plenty of times, with both factory rotors and MSD's. Typically in the post-loss diagnostics at the track.

June '03, car wouldn't rev at the track during TT's, although it ran fine getting there and when idling. First "help" I was offered was to look for a loose rotor, as that is what had just bitten the Chevy-driving helper who had similar symptoms. Turned out in my case that the coil ground wire wasn't attached properly instead (that's a long story). But, loose rotor was the first guess.

I've seen other distributor parts come loose as well. First time personally was August 1972. The '57 started running rough, fartin', no power, while in the neighboring town were the GF lived. I had plenty of "expert" help in the dark on the side of the highway trying to figure it out - adjusting the carb, timing, etc. After limping home and looking into it the next day, found loose points. Haven't had that problem in awhile, though...

 

Yea, this is something that "grounds" you... chuckle,chuckle! ... if you can see thru the blury picture that MSDl cap has turned the terminals green as the Lady Liberty in two years..I `ve taken off low brand Hei`s that have seen 7-8 years of daily duty with no green terminals, just worn...High voltage from the CD box causing that?

 

I was thinking of mentioning that. I think that's just the MSD philosophy, assume the maintenance-minded racer is going to replace the tune-up parts regularly.

 

Cheaper caps usually have aluminum terminals.

 

Is that a small cap dizzy? I see the coil in the background, a rotor that looks like my coil in cap setup on my truck. My remote coil cars have smaller rotors. :shrug: Maybe it's an MSD thing with their cap/rotors.

Anyway, the green is typical of extended periods of non-use. Did you use this say, alot during a particular span of time and then let it sit? I have a tiny bit of green at the path points on brass terminals where I use MSDs. Typically at the extreme edges of the path points. Not so much on stuff that doesn't run 'em. See if you can get some better pics.

 

Yes your right and for 20 bucks they probably do use aluminum, but I`ve never seen aluminum corrode "green"

and here is a better picture- I found that magic button on the camera Mind you most of the garbage inthere is from the incident but youcan see the green terminals...and as Red Devil said it does sit long periods between use even in the summer when not in winter hibernation. The green is worst right at the tips though

 

Maybe that was its stubborn way of telling you it was time for a new cap and rotor... I've seen the rotors come loose on my brother's S-truck with the 2.8 before... Its happened a couple of times, and both times we found it we were surprised at how well it still ran (his never gobbled up the cap, just ran slightly rough)...

 

That's what I was thinking!

 

Yea I got my money out of it, but it does look worse than I ever thought it would after only two years.

I`m thinking about going into that crab cap "ford style" where they spread the terminals further apart and it has an ionization vent, Plus I think it sits lower and maybe I`ll be able to pull the cap without pulling the STB off.