I think you bought one too many zeros there oldwrench. it should be .016 not .0016.
One thing I know is my VW’s, points are set at .016 that translates into 50 degree dwell. Anything from 48-52 is OK but on a good day it was 50 degrees time after time after time.
“Another, lost useage tool is the grease gun”. You might add the oil can spout to your list of lost useage tools. I still have my oil can spout, but can’t find a cylindrical 1 quart oil can with a metal top where it will work.
Not correct…They are NOT auto-transformers, they are simple step=up coils with separate windings…Crude 1920’s technology…1975, a banner year…All that antique stuff was GONE…GM’s HEI ignition was a revelation. I wonder what happened to all to old Sun Machines with their 6 huge meters and CRT screen dancing its high-voltage dance…
Today, with proprietary ignition systems, nobody knows where the spark comes from…It all must start with a “crank position sensor” telling the ECM where and when to send a spark signal…In the day’s of “Dwell Angle” restoring spark was a simple matter centered around a $5 set of points…Today, it involves $100 worth of “diagnostics” followed by $1000 worth of parts replacement…You may have to have your car towed to two or three different shops before this happens…Fortunately, this stuff is so reliable, the ignition system lasts longer than the rest of the car…Today, the spark plugs last longer than the DVD player and the GPS…
Oh you mean the self tapping oil spouts for the old style Metal motor oil quarts? LOL…yeah havent used one of those in a Looooong time…still have a couple tho…Maybe I will clean mine out and tap a big can of Pineapple Juice with it…The girlfriend may object to me putting that rig in the fridge tho huh?
Yes, the self tapping oil spout for the old style metal cans is what I meant. I’m kind of hoping that some brewery will put beer in 1 quart oil cans like the great old oil cans and I can reuse my self-tapping spouts.
Never owned a dwell meter or a timing light, but have used borrowed ones. As I recall, I used to set the dwell on my '69 Porsche 912 (lots of mechanical “smog” gear on that engine) just by gapping the points, and I would set the timing by rotating the distributor housing so that the points opened at some number of degrees (or circumference inches?).
HOWEVER, I do still have the Unisyn I used for trying to adjust the carburetors on that car – A job I do not miss at all.
Around 1972 age 13 I got a Heathkit VTVM for a Christmas gift.
Used it for ~18 months then a friend borrowed it and dropped it right on its face.
He pitched in $10 for me to get an Eico kit VTVM, which I still have.
For years I carried it doing freelance “dog” repairs at a few local TV shops.
Here’s some shots of a Conrad-Johnson I worked on:
I’ve got my original timing light and dwell meter that I used in high school for my 62 Corvair, my 73 Nova, and my 76 TR6, where I picked up my Unisysn. Couldn’t bear to part with them when I lost the TR after being rear-ended.
Very Nice. I enjoyed this link to verify vtvm was the correct terminology. One thing I found surprising was this!
One of the biggest advantages of a VTVM over a ‘regular’ VOM is accuracy. Let’s study the diagram above. It assumes a standard triode tube used as a voltage amplifier. The plate supply is 100VDC, and we wish to measure the voltage at the plate itself, with a 500K (designated above as .5 Meg) plate ‘load’ resistor. Using a VOM with an input resistance of 100K, the voltage divider action yields a voltage measurement of 14.3VDC! Obviously, this wouldn’t appear ‘right’ to the technician, and he would go on to use a ‘better’ DMM. However, for demonstration purposes, the technician decides to use a VTVM, with an isolation probe. Now the voltage divider action results in a voltage reading of 49VDC, which is pretty close to the ‘expected’ 50VDC.
http://tone-lizard.com/VTVM.htm
Mine’s been gathering dust for…decades…
I hope to never need it: if/when I get my ‘hobby’ car or bike, if it has points I’ll be putting an electronic ignition in it ASAP, put the parts I take out in a box for the next owner.
I remember how bad it was to get a crank no start and the vehicles owner had fitted in a electronic ignition kit but did not leave any kind of documentation in the car. This was in the early 70’s when it was popular to make these kind of swaps. For off-road racing (VW’s) we stuck with points in the 009 full centrifical advanvce distributor, rock solid reliable. No one with a VW engine used any thing but the 009 dist with points (as long as rules let you swap out the distributor as the 009 never came stock in anything I can think of).
Sew buttons on your underwear! You buy em books but they still don’t learn. Why should they, In my day there was nothing you could not rebuild, now it is just something you have to replace.
I still have a timing light dwell meter, vacuum gauge and the long ,angled end feeler gauges for adjusting the valves on flathead mopar engines. I wonder what happened to all the wheel pullers to get the rear wheels off cars up to the 50s, every gas station used to have one.
I never used to have to replace a greaseable part. I used to repack wheel bearings every brake job and grease every fitting every other oil change.Now I have ball joints fail at 70,000 miles and have a car with 44,000 miles and the wheel bearings are getting noisey.
Since every one was a Bug expert, I didn’t bother working on Bugs.{only the occasional ones} What 4 banger was 60 degrees old school? That was hardly any gap at all.I’m surprised the cars ran. I thought it was a Bug or Porsche.
TR-6’s ran best at Zero degrees TDC.
Caddyman, find another mechanic. The only time a crank angle sensor gets expensive is when the center part of a flywheel cracks
Hmmmmmmmmm…
I think…my dwell/tach…is in…the BOTTOM DRAWER of that 5-drawer chest in the garage. I think. I’m not sure. I think my timing light might be there too.
I remember my Vega didn’t have a little “window” to set the dwell like some of the designs had. To tweak it to spec rather than relying solely on the feeler gage required removing the distributor cap, tweaking, and repeating the process until it was right.
Yep, I’ve still got one. Must have bought it about 1970 or so. Worked great for setting points on GM cars which is what I had mostly. You bought the whole tune up test set at Target or Crown Auto for about $20 with the dwell meter, timing light, remote starter, and can’t remember maybe the vac tester. Burned the timing light up years ago but if I ever have a GM car with points again, I’ll put it to use.
Does anyone still have one of those flexible tools used to adjust GM points through the little window in
the distributor cap? This tool was quite handy but I have not seen mine in the past 20 years.
My kit (bought from Snap-on) actually contained a point set file. I have never filed a set of points in my life, also I have only put brushes in generators, never installed a diode trio in an alternator, never once overhauled a starter and probably put A/C clutch bearings in under 10 compressors. I really don’t know if I could have hacked it if I had to do the job of mechanics just one generation before me.
I don’t recall any car running at 60 degrees but I do recall being looked at as some kind of Henry Ford when a friend complained that his car was running poorly and a point re-gap set everything right again. He went on to become very sucessful in CA. real estate in the 80’s and 90’s , well we know what I was destined for, flat rate.