Huh. Interesting distributor failure (with pics)

[Syonyk]

Two weekends ago, my Subaru was cranky to start, but once it fired up it was fine all weekend. It had a nasty miss when I first started it, but a quick blip to 4000 RPM and it was perfectly happy for the rest of the weekend.

 

I tried to take it to Ames this weekend, and it started, did it's high idle warmup, and then died. I tried to restart it, and it wouldn't start. It would occasionally sputter, but nothing resembling running.

 

The coils are known for going out and causing trouble. so I threw a timing light on the output of the coil. Solid pulses, no missing. I threw it on a plug wire, and got occasional flashes but nothing solid enough to actually make the engine run. At this point, I left for Ames in the other car, because I was late enough as is, and there wasn't any way I was likely to fix a distributor problem in 5 minutes.

 

Come back from Ames, pull the distributor off, and... wow. I think I found the problem.

 

 

The center contact was laying in the bottom of the housing.

 

 

 

This is on a 6 month old cap with under 10k miles on it. Fortunately, it's under warranty.

 

-=Russ=-

[Subi81]

Ya happened to me too but not that extreme. I think I drove on it for like 3 days without the center contact. It would accelerate but wouldn't idle/cruise?

[Turbone]

That looks more like a 6yr old cap. I wouldnt replace it with the same brand, warranty or not :-\

[Syonyk]

Yea, I know. I think some of the debris is from the charred center electrode. It's just about 6 months old (I replaced it when I got the car).

 

I'm pondering keeping a spare in the car, though. I'll get the warranty replacement, because it's free, and I might snag another one just in case it does this again. It's not like it's difficult to replace, and I'm well into "shouldn't be spending money on stuff" right now.

 

-=Russ=-