Club 80-90 Forums

Hey,

I'm trying to find out where I can get a new distributor from, GFS are saying they don't do them

I have a 1.9 Petrol Water cooled 1983.

Cheers.

Kaan,

On here (Wanted) or a scrapyard or VW (if you have a stack od gold ingots in the cellar)

Or a lathe man that really knows his stuff. Its wear in the centre shaft (side to side and up and down movement) and/or on the the sides of the centre shaft with a dizzy that has manual points (where the heel contacts).

Mind you, advance plates can also wear out too. I have in past had one rebuilt professionally and one cobbled together from the best bits of three knackered ones but often you can find a really good secondhand one. Just put a note under 'wanted' - many owners have all kinds of odds and ends stashed away.

Cool cheers guys will stick one on wanted

Will a Bosch 009 do the job?

Not sure. Often quoted that, but I think it may be for an Aircooled variety of VW flat four... the tuner's choice for the old 1600? Stand to be corrected - which I'm sure I will be

so could I get this?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/vw-beetle-camper- ... otohosting

But 009s don't have vac advance - get a good used from our noble breaker friends

Too many myths about 009's too. Lot of youngsters seem to think (for reasons beyond me) that they give extra power. Tosh. The 009 is nowhere near as good as a stock distributor. They are fitted in the absence of anything else available basically.

But where did it hove from originally?

Reminds me of the Cooper 'S' distributors, no vac advance, stronger points spring, and a carefully chosen 2-stage centrifugal advance curve. You'd thus have to set the timing up a bit more retarded than usual and run a lumpy idle, but they certainly pulled hard right throughout the rev-range.

Reasons for deleting the vac advance:-

Less slop and scatter in the timing curve (very important);
Removed the likelihood the engine would over-advance and detonate at high rpm (performance engine);
Emissions, economy less important in those days;
High octane leaded petrol was available at every filling station in the 60's;
Simplicity... you want reliability to win the Monte Carlo Rally!

One 'S' my brother had, was running an old head we got from one of Frank Williams' mates in Essex, when we buretted it's chambers a few calcs showed the CRs were between 12.8 and 13.AwNoooo!

The static timing was critical, it would only run within a timing range of 2 to 3 degrees (half that at the distributor of course).

1 degree retarded and it would backfire badly when lifting off...
1 degree advanced and it would pink badly...

Spot on it went like a scalded cat

Pretty sure the 009 was designed for Type1 (bug) engines along with all the Bugpack stuff that came out of the US custom market.

If you've got a well tuned performance engine with all thetrimmings like counter balanced crank and high lift camshaft etc, then it will probably work a treat on a bug but a wedge has a lot more weight to it and economy is perhaps more important. It never worked that well on bays I found - again the weight really. Power curves are one thing but different ball game when its a heavier vehicle.

I did fit a tuned bug engine to a T25 crewcab many years ago (incredible pullaway) but I'd opted for a camshaft that gave it more climbing ability. On its own a 009 has no real benefits in my view. Fit the stock dizzy. Setting up the 009 was a breeze though - just set to a maximum of 29 degrees at full revs and let the static take care of itself.