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Re: Crane/Allison ignition system in TR6

To: Dave Fain <KC3565L@sprintmail.com>
Subject: Re: Crane/Allison ignition system in TR6
From: "Michael D. Porter" <mdporter@rt66.com>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 00:45:52 -0700
Cc: triumphs@Autox.Team.Net
Organization: Barely Enough
References: <34056F9E.2A23@sprintmail.com>
Dave Fain wrote:
> 
> Bob, does this fit inside the stock distributor?  Do you
> have a Lucas or Delco distributor?  Both the centrifugal and
> vacuum advance in the Delco unit in my GT6 are hosed and I
> would like to replace the insides.  I have to keep the
> mechanical tach drive.

I would guess the unit would fit as described for the GT6. I had a
Crane/Allison unit which I'd intended to fit to a GT6 distributor for a
project car. I ran into a serious plug-fouling problem while at the VTR
and had that unit along. Even though the kit supplied was for a GT6, and
the engine in my GT6 was actually a TR6 engine, I managed to get it to
fit (after pulling the distributor in the parking lot, disassembling it,
and removing the contact points pivot pin in the hotel room (!)). It has
been working quite well since. The vacuum advance hosing is
immaterial--the pickup and optical shutter mount on the advance plate,
regardless of the sort of vacuum solenoids actuating the advance plate.

The tach drive is wholly unaffected, since it is located in the
distributor body, below the breaker plate. BTW, the centrifugal advance
cannot be plumbed like a vacuum advance, since it is wholly mechanical
and operating underneath the breaker plate. It's connected to the
breaker plate to get the plate to move by centrifugal advance, but isn't
dependent upon vacuum in the same way that the breaker plate moves with
the actuation by vacuum solenoids.

A precautionary warning--the kit supplied to me included a shutter wheel
with helical slots, and the instructions in the kit said this was to be
used with vacuum advance units. In fact, it won't fit. The only shutter
included which will fit is the one with straight radial slots. And, if
logic prevails, the vacuum advance will work just fine with the straight
slots--the advance plate advances in relation to the shutter, and
advances the timing as with points.

Cheers.

-- 
My other Triumph runs, but....

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