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EFV-8 Club Forum / General Ford Discussion / 40 Ford distributer upgrade

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Posted By Discussion Topic: 40 Ford distributer upgrade     bwhitworth 10-19-2013 @ 6:43 AM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 59 Joined: Nov 2010 I have a 40 Ford with a 59 AB engine with the 40 distributer with two caps and coil mounted on the top. Would there be any advantage to putting say a 46 dist on the engine with a more conventional design of points\condenser arrangement? If I were to change it where would get a engine front cover to mount it? Thanks, Bob TomO 10-19-2013 @ 8:40 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 7243 Joined: Oct 2009 There is little advantage in changing to the 46 distributor. If your distributor has the 68 advance weights, you would get a little more advance with the later distributor. This advance would give you slightly better acceleration. You can get the same advance by having the 11A advance weights installed. IMHO it is not worth the money to do this. In order to change over, you would have to find a timing cover for a 42-48 Ford or Mercury, find a useable 42-48 distributor and have the points installed, buy a new cap and coil and then install the parts. Tom JM 10-19-2013 @ 9:08 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 822 Joined: Oct 2009 I agree with most of what Tom is saying. There is nothing wrong with a '40 distributor that's built with quality parts and setup correctly. As Tom said, you can upgrade your distributor by using the '41, 11A shaft and advance weight assembly. There is a guy in the Northern VA RG who does this conversion listed in the V8 Times. The later '42-'48 open face distributors are nice but also have some disadvantages. The '42 crab distributors are prone to moisture problems unless you have a good gasket between cap and distributor and little rubber caps/boots at each sparkplug wire opening. The '45-'48 two piece rabbit ear caps are a pita to wire up, IMHO Another way to put a later '42-'48 distributor on an early 3 bolt timing cover is to use a three to two bolt adaptor available from several dealers. I believe Dick Spadaro makes them. John This message was edited by JM on 10-19-13 @ 9:16 AM supereal 10-19-2013 @ 2:41 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 6819 Joined: Oct 2009 The earlier distributor will retain the original appearance. There is hardly any detectable difference in performance between the early and later units, as long as they are in good condition and properly adjusted on a machine, to make the switch advisable.The biggest fault we find in distributors sent to us is worn bushings and/or shaft. We see the problem when we strobe the distributor. There is also a problem with repro points having weak springs, creating point bounce. Finding quality points and other parts is making ditributor rebuilds a headache. TomO 10-20-2013 @ 9:02 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 7243 Joined: Oct 2009 John, the reason that I did not mention the adapter plate is that in this case with the 59A camshaft you would have to use 2 adapters, one to extend the camshaft, which he is already using and one to adapt the 2 hole distributor to the 3 hole timing gear cover. I don't like the idea of using 2 adapters for the distributor as I feel the it introduces more complexities than is necessary. Tom JM 10-20-2013 @ 8:50 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 822 Joined: Oct 2009 Tom, I don't know which camshaft his 59 engine is actually using but it most likely does have the shorter cam normally used in the 59 engines with bolt on timing gear. If that's the case, I would agree that using a three to two bolt adaptor and the internal slotted button adaptor together can lead to other problems. Using a stackup of multiple parts, and considering machined tolerance variations maybe going in the wrong direction, could defeat the intended function of the off center slot in the cam, possibly allowing the distributor to be bolted on 180° out of phase. John

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