This is a picture of my distributor, is this rust bad? Can it be cleaned or should I just get a new one?

 

Another view...

 

toss it... There should be no rust in the dissy. and find out how water is entering the engine compartment around that area. Expeciallyt checkt eh weather tripping on the back of the hood.

 

I have noticed this rust every time I change my cap and rotor but never really thought much of it until now. I can't understand how this happened , I keep my engine compartment really clean and this distributor looks like something from the junkyard! The weatherstripping on the hood looks fine. Even if water was getting in, how would it get under the cap? I am in the process of installing a cam, 1.6 roller rockers, headers, AFPR, etc.,etc.....might as well get a distributor. I was looking at the MSD drop in replacement , MSD 8366 , any other suggestions? Engine specs - 1990 5.7, roller cam , external coil.

 

My dissy looked similar and the rotor wouldn't even come off! We had to bang on it and use all sorts of interesting tools to get it loose. I wouldn't worry about it since the rusty parts aren't exactly high stress, just locking plates during assembly. So long as it spins freely don't worry too much. As for water getting in, who know's. I didn't have my weather stripping on when I changed the cap and noticed it was rusty, so off went the weather stripping. Never had a problem with water getting in and screwing up anything.

 

I'd be more concerned with the corrosion on the HEI grounding screws. The module needs a good ground to operate correctly. As for the rest of the rust, clean up what you can with a ScotchBrite or whatever and try to get the rust off the surfaces of the reluctor. Coat it with a rust preventive if you want.

 

Mine looked like that too, just not as bad, I just cleaned it all up and haven't had any problems out of it.

 

Thanks for the replies, the car runs fine so I will just clean it up and get a new ignition module. I planned on getting one anyway because that one has been in there awhile. I'll use the distributor money for SFC's.