Quote:
Originally Posted by WardAZ
Yes, Dudley. I had it in place at the MARC meet in San Diego and my car received full points for the distributor category. There were no comments from anyone, so I don't know if it was even noticed. The color of this silicone is gray-black rather than deep black, but again, no one noticed, or nitpicked my homemade plug.
Ward
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Ward, I judged your car at San Diego and it was awesome however we need to remember, when we were judging out in San Diego we were under both sets of the J/S book, --both the old and the newest adopted revisions. Therefore we did not
need to judge it being there under those guidelines since it was not specified under the older revisions.
I believe the J/S calls for the plug to be wax, ...and rubber, silicone, or urethane really would not be, -nor look authentic. Wax coating a silicone plug might pass as long as it did not flake off. BTW, look closely at the wax's texture in the photo.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Will N
Aside from fine point judging requirements- does this plug serve any real functional purpose?
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For what its worth, I was at the Archives a few weeks ago looking for the print on this specifically. Ironically, Ron Ehrenhofer was there looking at prints on the distributor so we discussed this 'little detail' there, then at dinner with some others that evening, and the following day at the Judging Stds. Committee meeting.
I never could find a print for it on the Assembly Drawing nor could Ron. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, ...I'm just saying we couldn't find it. Now with that said, I have tried to replicate this with both casting wax and Beeswax (since I cannot find the M-Specs on it either) and in both instances, all I have been able to do is melt it out after about 20 miles of driving.
Therefore it is my opinion this was never meant to be a permanent sealer.
So what was the true purpose? Again, my theory is this was meant to seal the distributor from the time it left the manufacturer until it arrived at the Ford Branch for installation into an engine. Maybe to keep out moisture --or more likely to keep foreign debris out. I do concur with Jim that Henry would not have utilized this unless they had found out it was a necessity (likely due to an prior issue somewhere).