Honda Distributor Rotor Madness

[Josie]

HI ETCG Folks;

I had quite an adventure today with my my 96 Acura GSR VTEC. What started out earlier this week as a spring tune up turned into nonsense that I am sure could have been avoided. That’s why I am posting for advice to avoid this in the future.

Part of my goal this week was to swap the plugs, cap and rotor (wires were done 3000km ago.) Plugs were done by me last year and came out without trouble. Pulled my wires off the old cap (one by one to put on the new one) and they all went smooth too. Next the cap came off without issue. Finally it came to the rotor screw. When I finally got a look at it (had to crank the car a sec to turn it too see the head of course) the Phillips screw head had been hacked to bits! :angry: Who would purposely reuse such a thing? GRRR! Used car woes :(. I decided to leave the rotor instead of getting stranded trying to get it out.

I got up this morning and headed for the junkyard to get a new screw (heck I got 2 of them just in case) because if I did end up getting that thing screw off, I knew I WOULDN’T be reusing the stripped one. I also picked up a new plastic shield for behind the rotor as mine I noticed was cracked when I investigated the screw issue yesterday.

I read up on stripped screws a bit last night and heard using a socket wrench with Phillips tip would give more torque and work much easier. So off to get a Phillips head at the local hardware store. Found them, the one 3/8 drive bit was 13 Dollars!! :ohmy: To get a set of 6 bits (3/8 drive) was a mere 20 dollars! and an entire 100 piece socket set 1/4 and 3/8 drive (that includes the 3/8 screw driver heads) was 70% off @$27..So now I have a whole new socket set for just $15 extra. So far its getting to be 1 expensive little problem. So back home, let the car cool for an hour, then day 2; round 2 began.

With new tools in hand, I began to take the screw out. Sure enough, the 3/8’s drive Phillips worked perfect. I felt all giggles inside! 😆 The new tool was worth it then right?

Next I went to take the rotor off….hmmm…nope this is really on there and it is NOT bugging. I hit the screw hole with WD40, waited 10 minutes to soak….still not moving. OMG what luck I have. Since I have a brand new rotor (and junkyard shield for the distributor), I took some side cutters and cut the shield out to give more room…No good. Spray more WD40 (making sure not to hit the electrical components) …nope nothing! Hit the google library on my phone. Saw that many people had had this issue. The issue is the rotor will rust to the shaft 🙁 Thanks goodness being able to learn form other peoples mistakes though.

Turns out those that tried hammers and screw drivers to pry it off ended up back at the parts store looking for a new distributor! Since brute force (I admit having very little myself) is not key, there had to be a better way. The only folks who ended up having success had access to a small grinding wheel to cut the rotor off. Since I don’t have one, my next best thing was a small hacksaw blade.

See-Sawing and cutting right by the end of the rotor wheel (so that I wouldn’t hurt the shaft by accident) and after 40 tedious minutes of sawing (being careful not to damage anything else but the rotor)the plastic wheel of the rotor fell off.. Then a sharp knife poked in the middle of the plastic stub brought out the hidden tip of the distributor shaft. More WD40. I pulled on the plastic and then it all broke away leaving just the metal piece, and that sucker was stuck hard!. GRRR OMG! More WD40. Waited 10 minutes, The pulled pulled and pulled some more.

Then, after depositing some skin from my left forearm on fender, that BLASTED;-2-TIMING;GOOD-FOR-NOTHING; SON OF A BUGGER came OFF! B)

So, I cleaned the mess up, cleaned all the parts that got plastic dust on them, cleaned the inside of the distributor with a clean rag, and made sure everything was dry.

Now Since I bought a brand new dealer cap and rotor for the car, I am sure I won’t need to look at swapping these again for a good while. I also decided I wanted to make damb sure I don’t have this issue again and decided on spraying some silicon spray on the shaft before putting the new rotor on. I used the like new junkyard screw and inner distributor shield, and so I think this is a job, though hard fought let me tell you, in the end I am the winner here. banana:

To that end, should these parts have preventative maintenance of some sort? Should the rotor be taken off the shaft once a year or so and cleaned and to prevent that rust welding the damb thing? Also, is Silicon spray a good anti rust agent for this purpose? Should I look at something else?

Basically, How do I make sure I never go through this nonsense again with this car? Putting my car back together took about 3 to 4 minutes, but this job took 3 hours in total!

Thanks for reading all.

Topic

[Bill]

That’s a great story. I have been there myself. I cringed with every word I read… 😆 I think I would have used a little anti sieze lube but not everyone has some handy. You probably won’t have the problem next time anyway.

[619DioFan]

We have all been there. try doing a crank position sensor on a 2nd gen dodge ram v8 ( while having large arms and hands ) talk about losing skin and blood. I agree with using a ” little ” anti-seize. also – wd40 is not very good for stuck.frozen fasteners. I use/recommend pb blasters.

[Josie]

Thanks for responding guys! I thought about anti-seize(that silver colored goop), when putting everything back together. But is it safe around the distributor (and other electrical areas)? I know I used it on rusty body parts and fasteners before and it does live up to its name. It’s great stuff

I guess I worried if any ran out from the rotor it could damage things. (would allow electricity arcing across parts). I guess the silver color made me think it had metal or other conductive materials in it.

Good news is that rotor has only been on 24 hrs and should come right off again this time to put something new on their 😉

[Garth]

Thanks for sharing your story. Hats off for being so persistent!! I’m about to do battle with the same “damb” phillips screw. I’m glad I came across your post because I didn’t think of using a phillips head socket on a ratchet to get the thing off. I’ll give it a try to see if I can get it off without stripping. Thanks again.

[Gerry Lloyd]

It could be that the dizzie cap’s ventilation was blocked, which caused moisture retention and the rust that led to your rotor becoming stuck (as mine still is.) — Somebody posted that a certain truck has ventilation problem in its distributor because of a small window with mesh that gets blocked by debris over time. Somebody else said that removing water and corrosion inside his civic’s dizzie cap was becoming a weekly necessity. I realized that the dizzie cap I bought a few years ago has stopped ventilating properly. It has a sort of ‘chimney’ with a very small cap on it that allows some air to pass by not seating completely. I replaced that tiny cap with a 2″ piece of plastic tube and hey presto, the car is running smoothly for a month (in a very damp winter) with no more removals of dizzie cap to clean the posts inside it. I still would like to take the whole dizzie apart some time and clean it up. Maybe in summer.

[Author]

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