When replacing the wires, cap and rotor I felt a bit of play in the distributor. The play is not side to side but up/down wich I guess is normal, but also rotational with a clunk to go with it.

Would you say this is normal play?

 

No, that rotational clunk is not normal. A little bit of up/down play on the shaft is usually okay, but any significant rotational slack is a bad sign.
That clunk means the distributor gear or shaft is worn out. It will mess with your timing and cause running problems.
You need to pull the distributor and check the gear for wear. It's likely time for a new one.

 

ok thanks!
I’m not sure but maybe the clunk is what I’m hearing as a knock. Would be easier to replace the distributor than tearing down the motor.

I’ll pull it apart today and have a look at the gear!

 

When you pull the dizzy, get a VERY good look at the gear cut into the cam. Way back when, my 92 stroker died...could not start...dizzy would skip. Pulled it out, shaft gear(brass or similar standard gear) was pristine. The cam side gear drive was extremely worn almost flat is some spots. Comp cams stroker cam, hardened steel. No idea how that happened. Stroker had 75 to 80K on it...Jeep had 330k and was starting to rot in several places....wasn't pulling the cam on a 330K jeep

 

thanks alot, will have a close look although it’s hard to see down there. I’m not supposed to turn the crank over and mess up the settings right?

This is my dizzy just taken out, I don’t know exactly what normal wear looks like but the teeth have symmetrical wear that seems reasonable? One thing that sticks out is that it looks like it has two half moon shaped chips that have broken off around the shaft- guess that’s not so great?

as mentioned the shaft has play up/down and rotational with a clunk

 

There is nothing in your pictures that show abnormal or suspect wear or damage on the dizzy. You need to get a good light on that cam gear...should look similar to dizzy gear. How much vertical play on the shaft now...similar?...from your picture...there is less than 1/16 inch between gear and thrust washer...about the same play when installed

 

so the play is quite alot and clunking too, see clip
also I tried to look at the cam gear but hard to say if it looks ok? What do you think?

 

Got another dizzy from the junkyard, figured the clunking sound from my previous post here would mean that mine is shot somehow. The new one does exactly the same thing…

did I just have bad luck with this or are they supposed to clunk when pulling up/down? Everything I see on YT seems to suggest that there could be minimal vertical movement but never heard anyone talking about clunking as normal.

Please give me some dizzy guidance you wise people!

 

I might have the dizzy from my old 92 in a box in the garage...will look today. Any play in the static shaft will be removed when the cam gear starts turning. The angled gears will either shift the shaft up or down until the vertical end play is gone the entire time the cam is turning. It will also preload the dizzy gear to the drive side of the gear so there will never be any "backwards" slop when the engine is running. Both your dizzy gears look good and similar, what are the odds of having two gears defective, exactly alike? If you were not doing an ignition tune up....did you have any indication that you had a distributor issue? Mine has the cam sensor, but all the monkey motion is the same I will see if there is play in it today if possible and video

 

thanks so much, yes I was doing a tune up and had a look while changing the cap and rotor. I was changing the spark plugs so figured I might as well. I noticed quite a bit of play up down+circular on turning the rotor and also with a metallic clunk. I figured it might be what is causing my knocking and chat gpt told me the same thing (surprise). Maybe I’m focusing on the wrong thing here but anyways wanted to rule it out. This is the gap I have

1 mm roughly?

No gasket here?

FSM says gasket

 

It would take me a week to get to the old motor and distributor parts..lol I did pull off the cap of my cam sensor drive unit...same stuff down below. Obviously cant get as good of a grip or offer as much rotational torque as you can on your dizzy plate. Mine rotates almost as much and goes up and down about as much as yours with the clunk with a lot less force on it as yours. Mines a "newly" installed stroker...around 100K on it give or take a few. You want to change the gasket...go ahead, its not hard. Make sure the gear goes back on exactly in the same orientation. It can fit 180 out rotationally. Every jeep ever made probably does the exact same things as yours..l tried to upload the videos but the image is file is too big and I don't know how to modify them. If you send me your cell phone number in a PM, i can text the ones from my phone..never mind think i got it

 

Got it, I guess the stuff multiplies, I´m 1 year in and already my shelves are full of junk.
Thanks alot for that video, that is a confirmed no-go for my clunking theory.
And my new-old dizzy is going back to the jj.

One last thing- the gasket, do you mean the one at the bottom? That one is gone too, but from the FSM it looks like there is supposed to be one in the shaft by the gear thing?

 

I think that may be a badly drawn picture. I think the "gasket" shown is the one that goes under the upper mounting lip. The inner dia is much bigger than the washer dia. When I stated it was easy to change, it was meant that the gear was easy to remove once the roll pin was punched out...I do not think there is a gasket between the gear and washer, no reason for it and it probably wouldn't last long against a rotating gear head. Sorry for the mis-lead. After looking more at the photo above the pictoral drawing, you have the large space between the gear and housing, but it looks like the roll pin us still in the gear, were you able to pull the shaft down with the gear still pinned? Lastly after reading better...you said you had 2 half moon chips broken off the shaft, but I don't think you showed them, or I didn't see it clearly. If its at the very bottom and symmetrical, its where the shaft slides into the oil pump drive. The edges are curved to reduce stress points

 

ah I see now the gasket is larger and should be drawn before the thrust washer. Ok.

the picture where I measure the gap is with tje roll pin still in, the one referring to missing gasket is with pin out.

the two chips mentioned are normal as you say, I’ve seen those on other pictures as well after digging a bit more.

anyways I followed cruisers tips 12+13 and adjusted the timing and added a new gasket at the bottom when putting everything together. I guess dizzy is fine. Search continues.

thanks for your kind support!!

 

No sweat