Background: I am in the process of restoring a 69 442. 4spd, 3.41 rear, no AC. I will be adding power disc brakes. I had the matching number engine rebuilt using original C heads, exhaust manifolds, and original intake and original carb and distributor rebuilt by Everyday Performance. Pistons are .30 over with a 9.5 to 1 compression ratio. Shop installed a Comp 42.600.J cam, AKA a Thumper. They told me I would love it, I hate it. I don't like the Idle or the sound and I can’t run power brakes. The quadrajet is very hard to tune with the lumpy idle. I’m spending too much time and money on this project to end up being unhappy with the cam so I’m’ going to bite the bullet now and change the cam. I worked with Mark Remmel to select a new cam and am in the process of pulling the engine to install the new cam.

Advice needed: When I pulled the distributor, the oil pump drive shaft stuck to the distributor. I did some searches on this site and see that it is a common problem. Since the oil pan is going to be pulled, I should be able to account for the retaining clip. I assume that clip should be accounted for before flipping the engine on the stand? I need some input on how to proceed going forward.

Option 1: Pull the oil pump and put a new shaft in from the bottom. This is probably the right approach given that the pan is off anyway but the issue is: How do I safely remove the shaft stuck in the bottom of the distributor and, more importantly, how do prevent it from happening again?

Option 2: Leave as is. But then how do I prime the engine? Based on my research on this site, it looks like you have to be very careful installing a shaft from the top. I thought I might weld a shaft to the bottom of the priming tool I use to make it safer to prime.

I welcome your thoughts on these options or others.

Thanks and sorry for the long post.

 

Place the shaft in a vice and tap the gear around it until it comes out. While you have the pan off replace the retainer on the shaft. To prevent it from happening again, look to see what caused it in the first place when you take it apart. Look for wear on the bottom of the distributor gear and how far the shaft went into it.

 

The drive shaft always gets stuck in the distributor. Not a big deal, and I've tried a bazillion ways to prevent it. Nothing works. The little retainer only serves to hold the shaft in the block when it's upside down on an engine stand without the distributor installed. Reinstalling the retainer will only guarantee that the next time the distributor needs to come out, you'll have to hammer the distributor upwards to drag that retainer off the driveshaft that will again be stuck in the gear, dropping the retainer into the pan. Leave it off, simply drop the shaft in from the top before the distributor, and don't lose a lot of sleep over it.

 

Thanks Joe. The shaft is currently stuck in the distributor so I think I'll leave it there. I will need to drop in a shaft to prime the engine. Can you make a mistake doing that? do you need to extra careful? If so, I may weld a shaft to my ford priming tool and call it a day.

Happy Father's Day to all!

Ken

 

Dropping the shaft back in is easy. If you're nervous, use a small magnetic pickup tool to hold it while you lower it down, then pull the magnet sideways to release it from the shaft.