Distributor housing to Rotor Arm Alignment Issues. How to sort it?

[ChasR]

Basically, my 944 has had a habit of killing caps it seems which is I took my last cap off and left the current cap on.

Looking at the arm inside the distributor it seems to be offset inside, scoring/digging away at the terminal at that end the worst. I put another cap on originally and took it off because of this quite promptly.

I thought it could have been a faulty rotor arm hence I purchased a new one (a Bosch item with the same part number (albeit in black)). That still is misaligned in the housing. The rotor arm on there seems to be the original item going by the late 1988 date stamp.

What I wish to know is whether there is any adjustment in the distributor housing to make it more central over the rotor arm. It's not the engine problem, since I had the same problem on the previous engine. However, the distributor housing and cam/rocker cover were taken from the old engine.

On a slightly more positive note I changed the plugs (noticing a trend here...). I was taken aback to find some Nology Silver spark plugs. I felt like a bit of a cheapskate putting in the Bosch WR5s (IIRC what the car came with) which are a 1/4 of the price of the Nology items.

 

[Mike_Pollock]

Until today I had never seen a miss-aligned cap but on Ez_101's car (944 Not Starting thread) the locating pins were bent. Thats an early 2.5 though and I it is but I'm not sure how, the S2 is different.
Will keep an eye on the replaced item to see if that gets damaged in the same way.
On the early cars there is a light plastic cover inside round the rotor arm shaft and I wonder if this is trapped under 1 side of the cap what the result would be? As I say not sure about the arrangements in the twin cams.
Mike

 

[ChasR]

Here are pics of the cap/rotor arm and the alignment issues. If you look 7 o clock at the rotor arm, it will become apparent how that part is closer to the housing than the rest:

It doesn't show it well, but on one of the terminals inside the cap, a good 1-2mm of brass has been eaten away by the rotor arm.

 

[Mike_Pollock]

It is totally different from the single cam cars!
I can see the probem, it really is out by a massive amount, but I'm afraid I have no idea about how to fix it!
Good luck
Mike

 

[JamesO]

The housing outer is held in place by 3 bolts there is no adjustment as such. You can see one at the top of the pic and there are two more that are hidden under the belt cover, I have seen the bottom 2 bolts missing before, not sure if that would allow enough movement.
The back of the housing is bolted to the head if I remember correctly with 3 bolts behind the Cam pulley.
Sorry about the crap pic, my mobile is not good in low light.

 

[smiffyraf1]

and is this fault causing starting/missing problems?

 

[pegasus]

Hi there,there are two hollow spring steel dowels that line the front ali cover to the rear,are they still there?,if the front and rear cover align properly,then the problem is the mounting of the reat ali cover to the head as there is no way that the cam can move, both covers must match the cam, there may be a slight misalignment of the rear cover to the head but that would be very unusual,all the best John.

 

[pegasus]

Just to add to my earlier post,if you remove the rotor arm is the cam concentric with the housing, if so try the arm in an other position (I think it can only fit in one position) if it fits in another position and appears concentric swap the leads to match the new position and try that,It has all been off before as the finish on the ali covers and cam cover is not original,I'm sure its a simple problem of not being put back together properly,hope this helps,John.