My son's RS died a couple of days ago while cruising along at about 30 mph. Won't go into the troubleshooting, towing, etc. but when we pulled the distributor (small diameter/remote coil HEI) we found a piece of metal (semi round) had broken loose up inside that round cover (copper??) under the rotor button and fallen down out of that cover. The $80 GM shop manual for the '91 shows what looks like a 2.8 liter Fiero distributor in the pictures/diagrams for the troubleshooting/disassembly of the 5.0 liter HEI distributor (we've got a fiero gt so I've seen the distributor a time or two). Anyway, what is that cover thing and how do you get it off and is it necessary. We bought a rebuilt HEI from Autozone and it does not have that cover on it (car seems to run fine without it but I'm curious). Thanks.

 

hmmm, im having a hard time figuring out exactly where you say it came out of...

Got any pictures?

but from what i gather it was a piece of the mechanical advance.

 

Maybe you're referring to the cover on the OEM reluctor assembly.. Don't know that its really necessary, its kind of loose on all the distributors I've seen. If you bought a reman one, it probably has a different design reluctor for the pickup. The new design is actually better, so I think you're good to go now..

 

I took it back to Auto Zone for the core charge and both guys behing the counter (I know one is pretty experienced as he has helped me several times when buying other parts) said they'd never seen an HEI with that ring/band/cover around the top of the assembly. You're right about it not being necessary as the rebuilt unit seems to be operating just fine without it. Both of them also said they'd never seen an HEI break up inside like that one did.

 

It is fairly common for the OEM reluctor assemblies to rust and break apart... Its almost amazing how long they will actually run a vehicle before they finally give up the ghost..