Just thought id get a wider audience for opinion.
My MB6 civic recently had a new distributor fitted. Long story short, rotor arm broke and destroyed original distributor. New one bought and fitted.

Everything was running fine for 5months with lots of miles covered. One evening while foot down, car lost power. Pulled over and noticed HT lead had popped of the distributor. Pushed back on and off I went.
All was good until a few weeks later died again. This time could not see any loose connections and was recovered by RAC.
While roadside, RAC Tech removed the distributor and found one of the "pin's" had broken off, with lots of play in the distributor which put timing completely out.



RAC Tech managed to re-adjust timing enough to allow me to complete the 8miles to get home.

Contacting the company I bought the part from 5 months earlier with a photo of the destruction, I was told it was not a faulty distributor but an issue with the engine.

"I'm sorry to hear about your trouble, on the evidence submitted it looks like the problem is not with our part,
the reason for the gear breakage is due to an extreme force of seizure from your engine, : ie Oil pump, cam gear etc."

I have owned the car for 8 years, carry out regular maintenance with oil changes between 6k and 10k mile intervals. Spark plugs every other service.
I'v also got a oil temperature and oil pressure gauge fitted. These have both been showing normal readings. No pressure spikes or drops.

A few emails back and forth, me explaining my ownership of car and service history. Also that car was driven home after the breakage, so no seizure had taken place.
His reply:

"The Distributor Cam is a free rotating part,Dependent on your Engine turning the Shaft, Unless the Internal part of the Distributor has seized it is not possible to attribute the breakage to the Distributor, further more the base compound of the Cam is softer than the linkage to the pump, the Seizure / Force to break this Cam has taken place within your engine somewhere, I'm quite happy for you to get the Cam Tensile checked, where you will find that the force to break the Cam resulted in you engine, and not inside the Distributor."

Now my argument is that even if the engine seized, as the distributor is a "free rotating" part, surely the part would just stop rotating.
Iv removed the distributor and inspected the side of the cam shaft and could see no signs of wear or damage.

It was agreed to send the part back to him for inspection before possibly sending out a replacement part.

I may be completely wrong, but can anyone explain to me if this failure could have happened in any way as a result of something on my part and not simply a faulty distributor?

Thanks

 

I bet that dizzy doesn't rotate freely - or is a 3rd-rate pattern part. How did you drive home with a seized engine?

HTF is the oil pump (crank-driven) going the over-stress the dizzy, on the end of the inlet cam? Did you rev it from idle to 70,000 RPM in less than a nanosecond? A jet engine does 70,000, but it takes a long while to get up there.

IOW, in technical terms, he's talking fucking shit.

Where is the missing part? It cannot have gone far, unless it dropped when the man was removing the dizzy. I cannot see how careless installation would have broken it.

I'd be prepared to put it down to experience and get an OEM part from somewhere cheap, like USA. I hope the MB-dizzy part number is shared with an Acura Integra/RSX or something.

Let me know if you need a friendly Acura dealer...

 

I'm pretty good mechanically and there's some weird technical terms there - designed to confuse no doubt !

I think there might be a connection between the first failure and the second - if you're saying the rotor arm broke then that drive plate tooth would have taken the brunt of a couple of hits before the rotor/dizzy cap disintegrated and could have been weakened in that first failure.

 

Thanks all, just a confirmation to what I already believed, but always good to double check. Agree the guy uses language to confuse, probably didnt realise he was dealing with a mechanical engineer. (I dont claim to know all about engines thought, hence checking).

And correct, the tab that broke off was just inside the opening when removing the distributor. RAC guy managed to fish it out with a small magnet.

BenRNBT, the initial failure has nothing to do with this failure.
Originally I fitted a new rotor arm and dizzy cap. Within a short distance, the rotor arm base broke, causing the rotor arm to be flung around inside the dizzy cap. This damaged some part of the distributor, so the whole distributor was replaced with a re-manufactured part.

Part has been sent back for company to investigate. Im sure he will try and come back with some BS excuse, but im 99.9% sure damage was not as a result of any part of my car and most likely some defect in the part casting or other material defect.

Will update once i'v received feedback from company.

 

Ah OK; R U Shure that the peg on the back of the cam is still square/undamaged? If there were play/misalignment there, the vibration at 4,000RPM (Yo!) might have possibly caused it to crack the tab and or case the rotor arm base to fail. But I doubt it...

Given the rarity of the MB, did they 'remanufacture' your old part & send it back to you?

 

it looks faulty to me too, how the hell can your engine have seized if it's still running and how the hell would that snap the dizzy anyway as it would just stop rotating? bloke is a cunt

whether it's been dropped or is faulty i don't know but it should be machined in my humble opinion, not cast, so shouldnt be at all fragile and should not fracture like that.

so shit part imo

 

Maybe Shaddow ought to re-direct him to my first and Jason's ultimate post; his dizzies may be mincey, but our opinions of him aren't.

 

Believe all the "new" distributors are "re-manufactured" with new internals and new "peg" bits. Not paying Honda £500+ for a NEW one.

Just received an update that my part has finally arrived with them (Sent it on Monday 1st Class. Thank you Royal Mail )
Now waiting for them to carry out there inspection and feedback.

Nick, thanks for the info on sourcing new from states, but I need a new one by Tuesday next week as I will be heading down to Bath Showground on thursday (90miles). Currently I am getting on with using my S2000, but I dont think I can fit 2 passangers and 8man tent with a host of other things in the luxurious S2000 boot.

 

Acura dispatch quick, but not that quick!

 

PS - send me the prat number and I'll check the price, just to piss you off a bit more..