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New Distributor, New Life



The refurbished distributor finally arrived for our Volkswagen Bay Window Type 2. After a little grease and a "wiggle",  the distributor dropped straight into place. I placed the pulley timing mark at 7. 5 BTDC (visually) and, using a test light, rotated the distributor until the test bulb just illuminated. I turned the key, and instant success! Bus started immediately and held a tick-over. 

My next step is to time with a timing light. The distributor has a single vacuum that is currently attached to the throttle unit. However, I believe that I should have a 'T' in the vacuum line that also goes to a nipple under the air box. That nipple was capped by the previous owner. For now, I will time with just the vacuum attached to the throttle unit - as it was with the previous electronic module dist.

The VW Bus started first time and performed flawlessly on a 10 mile test drive. However, the tachometer's now reading roughly 1.5x higher rpms than it did when we used the non-points distributor - it's also 'bouncy'. For example 2000 rpm reads incorrectly as approx 3000 rpm on the gauge. We know for sure we aren't anywhere close to 3000 rpm because we NEVER drive over 3000 rpm and the engine sounds as normal - its not close to 3000 rpm. I checked the connections on the coil and all seems good. After a little research, it seems the VDO tachometer uses an inline diode to adjust the signal from the coil to the tachometer. Now that we have reverted back to points, I'm guessing that diode (if in place) now has to be removed. We will investigate and report back.

Volkswagen Bay Window Type 2 distributor, new versus old.....




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