Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I'm rebuilding a distributor for my plus2. What is the minimum end float on the drive gear shaft I can get away with?

Dave Chapman.

Although it doesn’t really answer your question I noticed when I received my distributor back from DD after rebuilding that they had replaced the original thrust washer with one that had four dimples on it. I presume the idea of this is to increase oil supply to the bush whilst also maintaining minimum end float. This suggests that if using a standard washer without dimples you don’t want too little end float as it may result in too little oil flow to the bush

The workshop manual has the rebuild procedure for the distributor. The shaft is fitted with the the thrust washer nipped tight i.e. no end float. The end float is then set after assembly by tapping the end of the shaft to flatten the pips on the thrust washer. Unfortunately the resulting clearance is not quoted.

Thanks for the replies.

All I know is that if there is no endfloat the distributor shaft can bind at varying temperatures, resulting in stripped drive gear teeth (I saw a picture on a triumph forum).

I took a measurement from another distributor and it was about 16 thou, so I will set it to a bit less than that, say 14 thou.

Cheers,

Dave Chapman.