[chad]

Has anyone ever had the distributor lock up on the L134.

[Tim Dolan]

Chad; Pull the distributor. One bolt holds it down and it only goes back in one way. Does it spin? Either frozen bushing or more seriously.. a bad camshaft.
Does engine turn over with it out?

[Tim Dolan]

Also, the distributor shaft fits into the oil pump so if the engine went dry,I suppose that would stop it from turning but that would also keep engine from turning over. Keep me posted.

[F Bill]

There has been several reports of new melling oil pumps locking up and breaking drive gears.....I do not know what Melling has had to say about this subject, but an oil pump that is locked might be what you are looking at. Distributors have had small parts fall in and lock them up but it usually is obvious.

[chad]

Tim Dolan, on 06 July 2011 - 07:39 AM, said:

Also, the distributor shaft fits into the oil pump so if the engine went dry,I suppose that would stop it from turning but that would also keep engine from turning over. Keep me posted.

Actually i purchased the vehicle with this problem. The distributor locked up and crunched the oil pump sheared off 3 gears on the pump. The motor immediately stopped. The compressin is at 110 lbs and the bearings look good ( good oil pressure before the incident also). my issues is that a small portion of one of the teeth on the cam itself has a chip out of it. I would like to replae the oil pump and distributor I am just concerned about the chip on the cam gear. The pump does not take much power to run so i would think everything would be ok. I was hoping to find out if this is a common problem or not. I know the distributor is what locked up because the tang that goes into the slot on the pump is twisted off. If it was the oil pump it wouldn't have twisted the tang off.

[F Bill]

Distributors locking is not a common occurence. As you dismantle, check both pump and distributor for ease of turning..I'd be leery of reusing a chipped cam.

[chad]

F Bill, on 06 July 2011 - 12:31 PM, said:

Distributors locking is not a common occurence. As you dismantle, check both pump and distributor for ease of turning..I'd be leery of reusing a chipped cam.

yes I am leary also, however tearing down the engine that far seems as i should refresh the entire motor. I really don't want to do that if i don't have to and it seems everything else is in good shape.

[F Bill]

I would expect the chip out of the tooth to cause at the very least a vibration in the distributor drive..Which will eventually cause something else to fail. While a partial tooth will still function it will make noise as the gears do not have a complete mesh and will probably have excessive clearance when the chip is fully engaged in the other gear. I know you do not want to tear down your motor, but in this case I really would not recommend any other course of action.

Also.. you need to find out what happenned. Did foreign matter cause something to jam? If so, where is the foreign matter now? Was the oil pump defective? Or was the tang on the distributor cracked, causing it to fail and jam up the works? Really investigate possible causes and really eliminate them this time around....At least you shouldn't have to pull the crank, rods,or pistons.

I think you are gonna have to bite the bullet on this one.

[chad]

the person who owned it before me could not get the distributor loose so it was broke off at the top. I can only assume that something fell apart in the top of the distributor and jammed up the cam that drives the points. No other damage is apparent. It appears that the gears on the oil pump that mesh with the cam are the slanted style and mesh with more than one gear at a time. Since multiple gears are in contact at all times do you think the vibration would be there?

[chad]

F Bill, on 07 July 2011 - 07:05 AM, said:

I would expect the chip out of the tooth to cause at the very least a vibration in the distributor drive..Which will eventually cause something else to fail. While a partial tooth will still function it will make noise as the gears do not have a complete mesh and will probably have excessive clearance when the chip is fully engaged in the other gear. I know you do not want to tear down your motor, but in this case I really would not recommend any other course of action.

Also.. you need to find out what happenned. Did foreign matter cause something to jam? If so, where is the foreign matter now? Was the oil pump defective? Or was the tang on the distributor cracked, causing it to fail and jam up the works? Really investigate possible causes and really eliminate them this time around....At least you shouldn't have to pull the crank, rods,or pistons.

I think you are gonna have to bite the bullet on this one.

also the tang on the distributor seems to be twisted off rather than just broken off. This leads me to beleive that the distributor was the culprit. No pices from the distributor made it into the engine.