J-109 Question
 

this morning on the way to class the little magnetic sensors in the dizzy kinda got chewed and ripped apart by the sawblade looking thing. It was also full of what looked like powdered rust and all. In any case I have a new assembly w/o the ignitors so I am hoping to reuse mine and was just wandering if this may have killed them.

It could But not very likely.

You should be fine man, don't sweat it. Was it the magnetic pickups that got chewed up, or the inside of the distributor cap?

the magnetic pickups or stator as I believe it is called (was on Advance Auto Parts' site). Ya that little thing is expensive no wonder the previous owner jerry-rigged it. i found it all covered in a glue like substance and that is all that has held it together for all 4 years I have owned it, now it gets a nice one I had in the garage.

Ok, I swapped the whole assembly put on the cap and rotor and ignitors onto my donor one and she won't start. I get a weird cough that makes the whole car jerk and stops her from cranking then she will resume cranking w/o starting. Any ideas? Could the L and T coils be reversed? Any help is greatly appriciated. As of now I will have to have her towed at the end of the day.

Ok, I feel like an idiot. I completely forgot about aligning the rotor with the engine when I put the new distributor in. SO I should be all set soon as I can find TDC and figure out where the little arrow should point on the rotor.

Front or rear. Let's go by the flat part of the shaft instead, shall we? After finding TDC on your engine, 'stab' the dizzy into the front cover until it's fully seated and check the position of the shaft and the reluctor. The flat spot can point forward or rearward. The main thing you're trying to accomplish here is to make sure the reluctor (saw blade looking thing) has one tip as close as possible to the magnetic pickup (VR sensor) toward the front of the dizzy (pointing toward radiator). This is your leading pickup and the reluctor tip must be as close as possible in order to 'static time' the engine before the first attempt at firing it up is made. If it's off by a few degrees, pull it up beyond the gear, rotate a bit, and push it back down. The gears are slant-cut so it may take one or two attempts to get a feel for it.

I probably left a few things out as it's kind of odd to describe how to do this without having a manual nearby to plagerize. It's like trying to describe riding a bike or something. Sorry, I've just done it so much that it's become what's known as a neural-motor skill (like riding a bike, driving a manual trans, brushing teeth etc).

Oh yeah, here is something that is important. Be sure to wipe off the old heat sink compound and apply some new stuff. You can find it at Radio Shack.

Thanks guys, got her running and home. And to note she is running better then before, boo-ya! :-D