How to Lose at 40k: Saturdays agenda: Replacing Distributor

Monday, July 30, 2012

Saturdays agenda: Replacing Distributor

Been having a bit of an issue with my car lately.

Similiar to my current ride

Non-40k. Wanted to post this in hopes of it helping someone someday.

Have a 89 Dodge Spirit 2.5 EL Turbo. When it gets hot outside or if I've been driving it for a little bit power suddenly drops and comes back. Very unnerving as you can probably guess. Going about 60 down the road and RPMs drops as car slows down then less than a second later power restores and your thrown back into your seat. This would happen several times throughout a drive. This only happens when it's hot outside above 85 degrees and drove the car greater than 15 mins during that temp. At colder temperatures it was fine. Definitely heat was a factor.

Since getting to rent-paying-gig on time is important not only to aforementioned rent but also for buy toys it was time to fix this problem. Would rather cut into painting time a little bit then stress about the work situation when my car breaks down on the way to work.

Mechanics said its probably the pick-up coil. I replaced that Mar 2010. They told me to bring the part back to the auto shop and say its defective.

Checking with auto shop they said it sounds like distributor itself. Had them order me one and picked it up Fri. The weather finally was pleasant so the issue didn't present itself. Figures.
It wasn't til after spending 2 hrs, would've been quicker if I read the instructions before hand not during, to replace the distributor it occurred to me I should've taken some pics. While replacing the distributor I think I figured out the actual problem. Distributor rotor, a 3.99$ part, was corroded. According all literature available that is most likely the culprit.

After returning the distributor core also picked up the rotor.