V6 Distributer Cap Questions

[apole]

Hi guys,

Wondering if anyone can shed some light on this. Myself and a few others have recently discovered that our disty caps are very worn on a couple of internal contacts, and some other contacts are showing signs of burning/carbon.

Is this down to normal wear and tear?

I have done some research and there is a condensor and ignitor. In the old days with points, they could get prematurely burnt out when the condensor fails, but with more modern cars the condensor is there as an electrical interference suppressor from what I can see. If the ignitor was faulty then the car would show other issues.

For me, I discovered the wear on mine, as it started to mis occasionally under load at lower rpm. I have inspected mine and found the wear above, plus the rotor arm is badly pitted (like an aero or sponge), I did clean it up as best I could and whilst I am waiting for the new parts the car is running an awful lot better, no missing and much more power, so I'm hopeful this will make a difference.

I'm just curious as to if this is normal wear and tear (mine has done 112K KM) or something else is faulty and has caused this.

The parts prices are quite steep (£85) so I would like these to last a while !!

Thanks guys.

Andy

[dandywarhol]

With the old contact breaker points setup you would see the condition of the cap every 6000 miles when the points were changed.

There's no real need to inspect the cap (although it should be part of a major service - how many actually do it?) and as each contact will have had at least 100 million sparks over the engines 112,000 km then its probably done pretty well.............

[BongoNog]

I've just fitted a new cap (and arm) and was surpised to discover that contacts 2 and 5 are flush with the cap body, so the damage on my old one was not as bad as first thought! Having said that, for a 2001 model, there was enough corrosion on the contacts and rotor arm to justify the replacement - big change in performance too, so worth doing

Its quite a straightforward job, although a bit fiddly to get the bottom screw out of the cap.

[apole]

Thanks for the update.

I'm waiting for mine to arrive, glad to hear the 2 pins being down is not as bad as it looked although, like yours, my rotor arm and contacts were not in good shape. Mine is running alot better since I cleaned it up.

Agreed on that screw, you have to have double jointed arms to get at it, and getting the cables off the cap will be similar to wrestling with an octopus in a confined space !!!

BTW, I did find a supplier for the cap in America for the sum of $20 but he wouldn't ship outside the states which was a shame. Someone is making some money !!

[cheffy34]

[quote="apole"]Thanks for the update.


Agreed on that screw, you have to have double jointed arms to get at it, and getting the cables off the cap will be similar to wrestling with an octopus in a confined space !!!

I contimplated taking the metal cover off that the gears stick sits on, but not really sure i fancied the task of what lies underneath, was it just me that dropped the bottom nut down into the undertray then