Car started to run ragged- like the timing was late. Sluggish to ramp up the RPM's- but would do it. So I figure no fuel delivery problem. Get home- pop the distributor cap off and find the contact points are gouged, plus the rotor is shot as well. Put new cap and rotor on. Fires right up and engine is alive and kicking like normal. On my way to work-same symptoms show up. Another chewed up cap and rotor. Worn out distributor shaft?
I had this happen on one of the new style distributors. Though it was almost new (still nice and clean inside) when I pulled it from a pullapart car, it didn't last lbut little more than a year. Hard starting, rough idle, but it ran good at road speed. I was finding metal shavings in my distributor from the terminals in the cap. Eventually the shaft got so bad that I decided to replace it. Solved the problem. The top shaft bushing apparently wore out.
In my experience this is just the rotor not being seated all the way down (rubber mallet persuasion indicated) or vertical slop in the distributor shaft. For the latter I have inserted a hardware store washer between the gear and housing. Shim washers would be better, but rockauto no longer carries them and I don't know of another source.
