Pre-war (up to 1942) Need part #s for point sets for a Delco 667-C distributor

[Mike Baillargeon #15848]

Happy New Year everybody !!

I need somebody to tell me the part #s for the (2) contact point sets in my V12.

Please let me know also where to get them along with the condensers.

The distributor is a Delco-Remy 667-C for a 1935 Cadillac V12 series 40 car.

Here is a picture of the same distributor I found online.

Both point sets look like the same part.

The area parts stores list points but, they are arraigned in a different direction from what I need.

Thanks,    Mike

[harry s]

Mike, Try http://www.classicautoandmachine.com/index.htm. This is the company that was Pete Sanders' before he passed. It is now run by his family. Happy New Year to you and good luck.
Harry

[Jay Friedman]

Mike, I have a 1935-55 Cadillac Master Parts List. Under a category callded "Arm, Contact Point, Distributor" for a Model 370D (which I assume is your car's model number.) it shows a part number
184 2058, quantity 2.

The category previous to "Arm, Contact Point, Distributor" is "Contact Point Set" and it says these are not for V-12s and V-16s. 

[Warren Rauch #4286]

  Sorry to start year with bad news. The point set for your car was obsolete  in my 1946 Echlin book. It only fits 1934-37 Cadillac v-12. The better news is it may be possible to use parts from other sets to make up a set.

From a 1959 Filko ignition book. Filko Set 52-36-37 Fits  34-37 Cad v-12

FC- 52= Arms you need 2 . Fit Cadillac 35-58, Chev 6 53-58 etc. (delco# 1842058,1917254)

FC-37 = Lower Bar(FIXED CONTACT)(Delco # 1848507,819630,1837262)
    Fits Cad all 1930-33,Lasalle 30-31,Cad v-16 34-37, Duesenberg 29-32,pierce v-12 33-37, Stude8 28-31,And even harder to find others

FC-36= Upper Bar (fixed contact) (Delco# 1845983,1849876,825452,1839983)
   Fits Cad 8 32-33,LaSalle 32-35,Auburn 8 31-33, Buick 31-3,Chry8 30-31,Oakland 8 30-31,Olds8 32-35,Piece 8 29-32,Stude 8 29-32, and others

Now remember these are interchanges for Filco and Delco parts. They may well work for other brands,but maybe not.

Warren
PS : The first number in the Delco list of numbers is the original number for your car, the other numbers are What Filco claim as the same.

[TJ Hopland]

I was thinking that that design looked pretty common to Delco distributors that they used all the way to the end of points but I supposed for good reason or not over the years they tweaked the dimensions around a bit so they could look right but are not. 

I suppose what may be unique in this case is they had to shorten up the overall length to fit 2 sets in the space they had to work with?  I notice its not set up like the 'performance' dual point distributors where they are wired inline with each other.  Is this the engine that had dual distributors?  But this one is the 'master' so the other one doesn't have its own points?

[Mike Baillargeon #15848]

Thanks guys for all the info !

I've been searching all of your part #s, year makes and models of cars and I'm not finding anything available....

The numbers look right but nothing I can go to on eBay or the auto parts stores....

I'm going to try The Classic Auto and Machine Harry mentioned...

Warren and Jay, thanks for the effort with all the part #s....at least I'll sound like I know what I'm talking about when I call the Classic guys...

 I notice its not set up like the 'performance' dual point distributors where they are wired inline with each other.  Is this the engine that had dual distributors?  But this one is the 'master' so the other one doesn't have its own points?
[/quote]

This car has one distributor and one cap....And I learned that there is a firing order and a "wiring order"....

Firing order is 1-4-9-8-5-2-11-10-3-6-7-12

Wiring order is 1-10-9-6-5-12-11-4-3-8-7-2.....

Wiring order is looking down at the distributor cap and going clockwise from #1......I don't know how these guys made this work with 2 contacts on the rotor ??

Then my brother shows up at the shop and asks me how are we going to unload these tires??....I asked how did you get them on??....Harry, I think those ratchet straps are from that motor I bought from you last year....

You guys think it's easy !!

Thanks again guys and Happy New Year !!

Mike

[TJ Hopland]

Looking at the catalog page and the rotor I'm guessing there are 2 coils?  Hopefully that is a yes otherwise I'm even more confused especially because it seemed like a fun puzzle that I think I solved. 

First thing I saw is the extra terminal in the cap.  Was puzzled by that till I saw the photo of the rotor.  In the photo the top half of the rotor is normal but the stuff below is unique.  That non centered center terminal must be in internal contact ring in the cap that that carbon brush on the lower part rides on.  Its really 2 distributors in one.  2 points 2 coils and electrically speaking 2 rotors, they just happen to be on the same shaft, notice its not straight across, its got a jog in it.

Looking at the firing vs wiring order I see every other one matches up so that is a clue plus the fact that the 'dual rotor' isn't straight. 

1 and 1 match so lets say thats at clock position 1 (nice that there are 12 eh?).

Next in the firing order we need to get to 4.  4 is in clock position 8.  What is opposite of 1 on the clock? 7.  The rotor has a jog in it so if the top is pointing at 1 where is the bottom pointing?  Ding Ding Ding, yep 8 and what is wired at that position?  Cylinder 4.

IF they wanted to fire both cylinders at the same time they could have done that with one set of points and while 2 cylinders working in sync may get more power its not going to be as smooth as just dividing all the power strokes evenly so I think that is why the dual points.

We just used say the top set of points to fire F1/C1 (F firing order and C cylinder) which is at the 1:00 clock position. Rotor moves to 1:30 which doesn't do anything for us up there but with the bent rotor I bet that is when it is pointing at the 8:00 which is our F2/C4 and that used the bottom set of points, bottom coil and non center center ring.  I have no idea bottom points top but that doesn't matter as far as the theory goes. 

Now it gets even more interesting and was a further brain twister.  We have fired the first 2 in the order rotor keeps on keeping on now coming into alignment at 2:00. And at 2:00 we have C10 which  doesn't come up till much later so that tells us we may not be firing that now so we must be skipping that and maybe my half hour theory is not the case. 

We are still fine with the 1 1 1 concept but the next position things align is 2:00. When we are at 2:00 up top we are not doing anything but that must be when we align with the 8:00 below which was C4 so we still need our 3rd event which is going to be when the rotor gets to 3:00 which is C9.

So the rotor(s) go:
01:00 C01
08:00 C04
03:00 C09
10:00 C08
05:00 C05
12:00 C02
07:00 C11
02:00 C10
09:00 C03
04:00 C06
11:00 C07
06:00 C12

Its so simple its complicated!  Even cylinders are firing at even times/terminals and the odds odd. They sequence is skipping to opposite sides of the cap and every other terminal in the sequence so if there was a crossfire to a neighbor that cylinder isn't anywhere near a position where its gonna matter. 

Lets say the our #1 spark was to crossfire to its higher neighbor, thats got #10 wire on it which is 8th in the sequence so is still pretty far away from getting to a compression stroke where it would be really bad to get a spark.  If it went backwards then we got the #2 wire.  #11 would be the one that is on the exhaust stroke TDC when #1 is firing and 2 and 10 are on either side of that so it really would not matter if we got a stray spark there. 

If they had tried to go 'normal' I think they would have some serious physics issues trying to get a single set of points to follow 12 lobes on the points cam even remotely close to as fast and with the dwell time required but if that wasn't a big enough problem they would then have the terminals so close to each other that cross fires are really likely and with a conventional setup if the spark jumped to the next terminal and that was the next in the sequence on its compression stroke but not yet to tdc bad things happen.  You don't want to try and push the piston down till after it comes past the center of the crank, talk about pre ignition and detonation......

No I have never seen or heard of anything like this before but I got enough clues from pictures and the firing and wiring order that with several scraps of paper and a pencil with eraser I was eventually able to get it.  I did have several false starts, was 'easy' for the first 2 events, it was that 3rd one that was the real mind bender.  I hit preview about the time I started thinking about the number of lobes on the points cam and when you do that the pictures disappear so I can't go look and see if there are only 6 lobes but I bet that is the case.   

[TJ Hopland]

Just checked the first pic of the dizzy,  can't see and count the lobes but there sure are not 12 there so I think I got it!   Like I said and so many things from that era so simple its complicated.     

[Mike Baillargeon #15848]

As usual TJ, you are correct !!  WOW !!

Mike

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Just checked the first pic of the dizzy,  can't see and count the lobes but there sure are not 12 there so I think I got it!   Like I said and so many things from that era so simple its complicated.     

Hence the dual points.   Must be offset to let one set open whilst the other is closed, at the base of the opposite ramp.

Bruce.

[harry s]

Back some years ago I helped a friend tune his '31 V-12 and understood the ignition concept and it made sense, but I could never have explained as well as TJ, hats off. It looks like the points are the same for each side on this distributor. The points on the earlier distributor were left and right or a mirror image of each other. The replacements for them were Cad '48 and '49 which are mirrors. I know there were several generations of the V-12 distributors so maybe either/or of those points would fit. It's worth a try. BTW I'm going from memory as dangerous as that can be. Mike, that's a pair of tires! glad the straps have held up.

[TJ Hopland]

In this case the points are fully independent.  The points cam and is spaced out for every other terminal on the cap so by having them offset those 6 lobes make up an evenly spaced 12 events.

The 'performance' dual point distributors that I think came out in the 60's they were electrically tied together firing a single coil and on those there was an overlap. In those they did the dual with the overlap to overcome physical limitations in how fast you could ride the cam and open and close a single set.

For a high revving engine the mass inertia of the points becomes a problem so they came up with this sharing concept where one kinda ends up taking care of the opening and the other closes. With the overlap they can have less aggressive cam profile because while one is doing the work the other one can take its time getting into position for its turn.   

[TJ Hopland]

I kinda forgot about the original question here.   It doesn't look like there is a lot to work with here but I'm pretty sure there were brands and or styles of points where the contacts were screwed in.  I wonder if assuming those are easier to find you could grind off the old damaged contacts and install these bolt in ones?

How about re plating them?  I would imagine a DIY person could not do as good as job as the factory especially back in the pre OSHA days but maybe you could do good enough?  Or are there not any DIYish today plating methods that are strong and conductive? 

[Mike Baillargeon #15848]

Tj you probably already explained this but I read in some old repair manual today that because the rotor has (2) contacts, one of them handles the left side of the motor and the other handles the right side...

Just like you said the offset of the contacts hit the correct cylinders at those weird hours on the distributor cap....

The car was hard to start when I got it....what caused my problem is that the coils were weak and I wanted to change them......I had fuel so I figured it must be spark.....Me not paying attention, I wired the new coils wrong and cooked one of the point arms....Mushroom cloud came out of the dist cap !....not good !

I took the part number you guys gave me and found an arm that goes to my point set on eBay....I get it a few days and we'll see what happens....for 20 bucks I'm taking a shot...

Once I get some spark in the right places then I'll find out why the hard starting....timing?...The dist cap?....rotor?.....I hope it ain't compression or bad valve problems...

Mike

[TJ Hopland]

If the cylinder layout is the typical even bank on one side and odd on the other than yes one coil and point for one side and the other for the other side.

Do you have a dwell meter?  If you don't probably worth getting one just to make sure you have the same dwell dialed into both sets.  Would have been nice if they did the later V8 style with the adjustment port and screw.  This style you are gonna be in and out a few times to get em both dialed in.  The dwell meter will also give you an idea if the distributor has wear issues.  If it does the dwell reading will tend to vary,  it should be steady.

While you are waiting may be worth some exploring and testing to make sure the plate the points mount on is well grounded to the body and thus the engine.  Lifting out that plate will let you have a look at the weights too so you can see if those need any cleaning or lubrication.

You should also make sure that the correct set of points is connected to the correct coil and that coils wire is going to the correct center terminal on the cap.  IF that was flipped anywhere I'm thinking things would be funky.  I don't think it would run if that was all that was wrong but if someone got it wrong then changed the timing or the wiring maybe it would be possible to kinda get it to run?  I would have to get the pencil and paper out and do some sketches again to prove that theory tho.