I promised an update and so here is some information: 1. I stopped the oil leak. It turns out it was leaking in two places. First as I knew at the top of the shaft and this poured back in to the inside of the distributor. My wavy washer trick fixed that (I think for good). The second place it was leaking was actually where the distributor fit into the block. Wasn't leaking as badly here but enough to need fixing. My use of the 235 mounting hardware didn't work as I had hoped. First I tried an o-ring there but that didn't work so...
2. I made a new collar. I used some 1" PVC pipe and with a chop saw cut a 1/2" piece so it would be nice and parallel. Then because the distributor body is about .93~.94" where I needed the collar to be, I slotted the PVC and filed it even so it would clamp with a tight fit (using a radiator screw clamp). You can see that in the first couple of images below.
3. As in the third image you can see I slipped an o-ring on (actually I ended up using two o-rings to be certain I got a nice seal here). Once this was done I installed the distributor and then lifted it up about 2mm so as not to push down into the oil pump slot too hard when it was tightened down.
4. As you can see in the fourth image, I need to add a 1 inch inside diameter washer on top to have the clamp fit just right but it doesn't leak a bit now. Whoopee. Nice when a plan works, isn't it?
After not using this for several years what do I think so far? This thing produces an impressively strong spark. I believe there's even a difference in the brightness of the timing light. With the Langdon Mini-HEI, the engine had a persistent idle miss if idle was set down low (around 450~475 rpm) and this little misfire caused it to run rich at idle and cough intermittently out the tailpipe. So I assume there's something not quite right in there or possibly with the coil and I'll attack that distributor later. With this distributor starting is very fast. With the Langdon HEI the engine seemed to run best at 10* BTC. With this distributor it runs best around 12~13* BTC.
Yes, it is ugly and I need to straighten up the wiring. I'm not concerned with the ugliness even a little bit, though. This thing is measurably better than I remembered it being. As Jerry aptly said it may need GM parts to improve the reliability. However before mounting it I checked everything I could inside and it looks okay to me.
Given the cost of these, I'm considering buying another one for experimentation. Maybe a red one might look more interesting.
~ Jon 1952 1/2 ton with 1959 235 | T5 with 3.07 rear end
