I did a quick search and didn't see an active thread on this.
Rebuilt the 292 last year. The teardown indicated that the engine had turned over 200k+ so I opted to replace everything for new including distributor. Opted for points because I am stubborn and wanted to learn them inside and out. Among many things I purchased from Classic Parts was a brand new 292 distributor with vac advance for a stock replacement. Had everything tuned up great in September 2020 and started rolling the road.
I couldn't get more than 300miles on a points set though, which I attributed to the point physically slipping on the mounting plate (regardless of how tight I screwed them down). Every 2-3 weeks I was adjusting them again back to proper gap. Fast forward to May 2021. My final load of logs for the year and I had a real boggy engine with top end miss, indicative of points out of alignment. Pulled over, popped off the cap, turned the engine over to proper lobe orientation for point set, and found that I was out of usable adjustment. Limped 80mi home on out of spec points (with 4ton load) at 30-45mph while feathering the throttle. Ripped the top of the dizzy off the next day and found the culprit (see photos).
Whatever metal they used in manufacturing this dizzy is so beyond pathetic its frustrating. All the holes are wallowed out. As the hole size increased, the vac advance plate would shift backward on its pivot, closing the points gap, where I would then reset gap. This continued for 5k miles until there was no more adjustment left. Even the pin hole for the vacuum advance rod is shot. Further, some of the plastic components in this dizzy broke merely by me breathing on them too.
Grabbed the dizzy top plate from the original and swapped it over to the new dizzy base which solved the issue, but its just a band aid. Im still tracing a bad miss across all RPMs now. I HIGHLY advise steering well clear of any of these distributors from Classic Parts as they all seem to be from the same manufacturer. This particular one is WPS DST1612 from them. Pretty sad. The condition of this (which sees minimal wear) makes me second guess everything else (gear, shaft, etc etc).
