Well anyhow, I started my car for the first time in over 2 months. It started up rather well. Smoked like a bich from all the oil in the manifold and the various paint that was burning off. anyhow so once the smoking ceased I noticed my car was clunking rough, and my car soon died. Anyhow my car was acting as if it was out of time. So I pulled the cap off the rotor and there was metal shavings everywhere. Either the rotor is the wrong one or the cap is, but none the less the rotor slized through some plastic, then broke the tabs off of the top of the cap.

I changed these while the engine was down.
Any idea why this would happen, I bought these new from autozone, but there is something really wrong.

 

sounds like there is a problem with the rotor or cap. perhaps a manufacturing defect. all caps and rotors are the same from 80-85. that or they sold you a wrong cap or rotor...very unlikely that either would fit though. are you sure teh rotor was pushed onto the distributor shaft correctly and that the cap was installed correctly?

 

It's easy to bump the cap and knock it out of alignment. When that happens, it chews up the contacts on the cap.

 

it was all pushed down and clicked in I checked it when I pulled it off. the height of the rotor wouldn't of done the type of damage, its scratched more the sides of everything. if they are all the same for 1st gens I dont see how it can be off because I doubt the wrong cap would even start the car.

 

if you bought a cap for a 79 with the points system, that could be the wrong distributor cap. on two sides of the cap, there is a notch for the cap to slide onto the distributor body and the fastners to clip and secure the cap to the body. were those ligned up?

 

yea those where lines up. No I dont think it was points. This is really weird, I have a picture of the damage Ill post later

 

Been there and done that man. Very easy to get the cap a little bit misaligned, then the next thing you know your cap is all chewed up. New cap/rotor should get you rolling again, as long as you put it on the correct way...

 

ok I just got back to work on the car, I put it all on straight with the same cap and rotor, and when turning it over it is still hitting the plastic outside wall of the cap and the contacts. It is all on straight as possible.

 

Check the cover plate under the rotor. If it's out of place, it can skew the cap too.

 

I think that was it, I lined it up fine and it started and ran, of course after it was warmed up it did not want to idle below 1200 because the trailing tabs are not there anymore

 

I've found trailing to not effect idle quality.

 

sorry for resurrecting an old thread but i'm running into the same problem with my car now...

I've gone through two caps and two rotors already.... Each time my front rotor leading point get's eaten and bent over. The plastic on the inside of the cap has some scoring but the only point that gets hit is the leading front. Any ideas on this? I have since changed out my original dizzy to another one (83 GSL dizzy) and that one seems to be running a little better, but I can still hear a noise between ticking and scratching when the engine is idling. I think that the replacement dizzy is getting my new rotor to contact my new cap... any ideas?

One random comment, I had a timing light hooked up throughout the process of breaking, changing, and re changing the dizzy cap and rotor... can anyone explain why I loose spark on my leading wire (front and rear rotor) when I begin to rev quickly from idle? If I rev slowly the spark sputters slightly but stays consistent, but when I rev quickly the light goes off for almost a second then comes back to its normal strobe....

any comments would be greatly appreciated