Senior
Posts: 6819
Joined: Oct 2009
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The reference is to a "carbon path", which is a deposit of carbon, usually along a crack in the distributor cap or other part subject to high voltage, caused by arcing. These paths will conduct high voltage almost as efficiently as a wire. They can be hard to see, but using a magnifying glass, look carefully at the surface of the plastic in the area of the contacts. They will resemble a lead pencil line. Sometimes they can be scr*ped away, but almost always require replacement of the part. This problem is more common today, due to the generally inferior quality of the repro parts. Setting up a distributor on a machine does more than set the point gap. It allows us to see the firing pattern on the strobe, the action of the fly weights, and whether the timing retarder is working. The flathead distributor is a marvelous unit, and if you get the points set close to .016, it will usually run just fine.
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