Thread: Changing Dizzy

Send a PM to Bee Utey - he sold me a modified Holden V8 Bosch dizzy out of an old Rangie a number of years ago and it went straight in my 101s V8 and is still there - he can tell you what is required.

Garry

You need a distributor from a very early range rover.
I think after 1978 they changed the distributor drive gear and it will not be a direct interchange.
My 101 is running a pre 1978 points dist from a range rover with a electronic conversion done to it.
There is a factory electronic distributor with the early drive gear on it, but you know what they say about Mr Lucas.

Originally Posted by PeterP

I want to replace my 24v dizzy (currently running 12v) and shielded leads with a standard 12v unit.
I have one from a Rangie and know the drive on the bottom for the oil pump is different between them.
Does anybody know if I can just knock the spring pins out and change the drive gears between the two?

There's no issues swapping gears that I know of, just you need to be very careful with supporting the dissy and gear to not damage them. I use aluminium vee soft jaws in the bench vice and a 3/16" pin punch to change gears. Admittedly I don't see any of the very early distributors so I don't know if the shaft end is exactly the same. The oil pump drive may not be present on the later shafts. You could also try swapping the oil pump gear and shaft to match the dissy.

I've done it with a P6 engine fitting a Lucas 35DLM8 electronic unit, just need to swop the gear over as already noted.

Never had any problems running the Lucas unit on my V8's, more reliable than a points one...

Thanks for the replies, I will pull the 24v one out next week and do some eyeballing and measuring.
To change the oil pump drive to the later one I would need to change the timing cover as the oil pump gears are deeper.
It is interesting that Garry has a modified holden one as Harry (Ho Hars) was told his is a Ford one.
Sounds like it shouldn't be a major problem.

I am running just petrol at the moment. Any suggestions on the best plugs to use?

Originally Posted by PeterP

I am running just petrol at the moment. Any suggestions on the best plugs to use?

NGK Iridium to the same specification as the manual says - you won't need to change them for years and get yourself some Magnecore high-tension leads,

Cheers Charlie

Short answer is yes and no. Yes you can change the gear but no it will not work.
Have not found out info about modified dizzies so I will change to the later model timing cover with the higher capacity oil pump gears.

Picture below shows why


Because of the standard shielded leads I obviously used the standard aircraft type plugs as per the manual.

Had a dahhh moment while researching plugs. Noticed that for the earlier 3.5 the plugs have 12mm reach and later ones have the 19mm reach plugs. During the engine rebuild guess who put later Stage 1 heads on because because of the slightly bigger valves.
Short reach plugs in long reach holes is probably not recommended.

If you change over the timing cover and oil pump etc, you will not be able to run the standard engine oil cooler set up and I think the oil filter ends up in a different position.........be ware you could be making alot of work for your self.
Look at a after market option or convert early points dist to electronic.