Anyone rebuilt a distributor?

[mudtruck]

Help. I am halfway through a dizzy rebuild on a 1991 2.6L trooper. I can't get the T-sleeve to lift off the shaft. Should I get a super small pulley puller or try a heat gun and freeze spray the shaft? It is in the mid 30's in my garage. I got the crank angle sensor trouble code, and I found oil inside my dizy.

[mudtruck]

Well I brought the dizy inside the house and left it near a heating vent. The next day the T-sleeve slid right off. It seems there was some old oil locking it in place at those cold temps. The bearing looks good and i ordered a new inner seal from Red's Auto Rehab for $7 here: http://redsautorehab.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=69
I hope this info helps. It took me awhile to track down the parts. NAPA has a kit for the O-ring and seal for close to $25. So I will wait for the parts to ship from Red's.

[jwray76]

good info here!

[Oregon RS]

For the 4ZE1 distributor (and possibly for the 4ZD1 as well, I'll have to check), the internal oil seal in the distributor is a NOK 3286, dimensions are: 12.45mm x 22mm x 6mm. This is the same seal Honda Accords used on the F22B1, F23A1, F23A4, and F23A7 engines, FYI.

Hey y'all, I dug up this old thread to check the sequence for rebuilding my distributor, and thought I'd bump this out there with a minor correction that might make it easier for folks to source the inner seal locally...

The part number listed by Red's is actually KOK-3286, not NOK-3286 as listed in the original post.

I ordered a few of the inner seals today...one to install, and a couple to have on hand with my spare O-Rings from JERRY.

Cheers, and thanks for the detailed pictures, instructions, and other information in this tutorial !

[kg4miq]

That's the replacement part number, but the original NOK part number is still valid and readily available.

Located here on Amazon

Advance Auto Parts has begun stocking the KOK part number kit.

Either one works fine.

[Oregon RS]

Good to know they're both in play still.
I tried to find the NOK number at half a dozen parts stores and two dealerships here, and no one could locate it in their system.
Needless to say, I picked up a few of them when I had the chance.

I couldn't find a mini-puller for the brass T-Sleeve in town, so I made my own using items that most of us probably have on hand.

First, I dug around in my fastener drawers for a couple of 1" 'L-Brackets (Think miniature sized shelf brackets), a 2" bolt that would thread into the top of the distributor shaft, and a matching washer and nut.

Then I bent one side of each L-Bracket inward, turning the "L" shapes into "J" shapes.
With a little futzing around, I was able to run the bolt through the holes in the unmodified ends of the brackets with the washer and nut threaded onto the bolt from underneath while rotating the bent ends under the lip of the brass T-Sleeve with the bolt end threading into the distributor shaft to grab hold of the sleeve like a normal puller.

It's not the prettiest thing I've ever made, but 10 minutes putting it all together and a few turns of a wrench had the sleeve up and off the distributor shaft with no trouble at all.

You probably get the idea, but I'll post pics if anyone wants to see it.

[kg4miq]

Quick update: Talked to Jerry yesterday and he brought up a valid point - the gear with the cotter pin is 13 tooth, and can be reassembled 180 degrees out of "normal" position. What this means is that timing your engine will be an exercise in frustration, due to the gear being several degrees out of sync (think: optical wheel, timing pulse, etc) from what it should be. I guess he and I have just been fortunate, in that we've only seen one instance where it was installed incorrectly and became a problem. I told him I would update this thread with the information.

Mark it somehow before disassembly, and be certain to reassemble the gear onto the shaft in the same orientation it was originally.

HTH,
/tim

[roadsterdoc]

Bingo. I have to use plug wire #4 when using the timing light. It took a little while to figure this out (ie, your predicted exercise in frustration). I’m surprised that it runs at all with the distributor clocked in the normal position. I guess because the fuel injectors are batch fired.

[Ironheadchop]

Digging up an old post here. Found no spark on my 2.6 pickup and thought i would pull the dist. cap off to check it. When i pulled the cap off a bunch of oil was in it. I would like to try and rebuild it buy my question is if there is oil in there would it of damaged the crank sensor inside of it?

[stien514]

I too experienced a horrible oil leak in the distributor causing numerous issues, I pulled it, took it apart and replaced o-rings if remember correctly as it was 15 years ago and just recently started leaking again.
So I’m guessing I’ll be doing it again.

[kg4miq]

Ironheadchop, see my comments on the first page: the crank angle position sensor doesn't normally go bad (I've never come across a bad one, unless it was physically mangled in some way). If you're getting spark at all, the crank position sensor is good, but it might be dirty. Clean it with brake clean or electronics spray cleaner.

[AWK666]

Quick update: Talked to Jerry yesterday and he brought up a valid point - the gear with the cotter pin is 13 tooth, and can be reassembled 180 degrees out of "normal" position. What this means is that timing your engine will be an exercise in frustration, due to the gear being several degrees out of sync (think: optical wheel, timing pulse, etc) from what it should be. I guess he and I have just been fortunate, in that we've only seen one instance where it was installed incorrectly and became a problem. I told him I would update this thread with the information.

Mark it somehow before disassembly, and be certain to reassemble the gear onto the shaft in the same orientation it was originally.

HTH,
/tim

Hi - digging up an old thread yet again - I am in the process of rebuilding my distributor today, I noted that on my 4ZE1 the split pin (cotter pin) is offset on the shaft, so you can only put the 13 tooth gear back on one direction.

Did have a little freak out reading this comment after disassembly, thought id share what I found.

Cheers

[takemehome4LOroads]

Quick update: Talked to Jerry yesterday and he brought up a valid point - the gear with the cotter pin is 13 tooth, and can be reassembled 180 degrees out of "normal" position. What this means is that timing your engine will be an exercise in frustration, due to the gear being several degrees out of sync (think: optical wheel, timing pulse, etc) from what it should be. I guess he and I have just been fortunate, in that we've only seen one instance where it was installed incorrectly and became a problem. I told him I would update this thread with the information.

Mark it somehow before disassembly, and be certain to reassemble the gear onto the shaft in the same orientation it was originally.

HTH,
/tim

Hi - digging up an old thread yet again - I am in the process of rebuilding my distributor today, I noted that on my 4ZE1 the split pin (cotter pin) is offset on the shaft, so you can only put the 13 tooth gear back on one direction.

Did have a little freak out reading this comment after disassembly, thought id share what I found.

Cheers

On my dizzy, the holes line up either way. If it is offset, it's not super obvious, but the roll pin was way easier to install in only one orientation. I didn't remember which the original orientation was, so I tried both. Unbeknownst to me, my EGR valve was stuck open during these tests which made it seem like the dizzy was not working great at all. I went ahead and got a new Spectra unit on Rockauto.

With the rotor pointing at the the mark on the mounting tab, the gear should land between two teeth on the lower mark, also note position of mark on gear, see picture:


I reinstalled the gear on my original dizzy correctly, and replaced the EGR valve, and after that everything was running fine.

The size of the bearing is 30mm x I.D. 10mm x W 9mm. There are tons of replacement options on Amazon.