The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Brand new HEI for Stovebolt <$100...see how

You've seen these distributors on eBay and I mentioned them recently in a previous post. A fellow asked me what all was involved in adapting them to the Stovebolt engine so here it is in case anyone else is interested. One nice thing is you won't need any special tools. Nothing more complex than a dial indicator and a bench grinder. Yes, these are ugly (image below). A lot of things in life are. At least the Stovebolt engines seem to like these.

First, buy the 230/250/292 HEI distributor. This will cost you something like $70 or less including tax and shipping (which in many cases is included in the price). I see some for $65~67 or so. These days that's about the cost of 3 pizzas and a tip to put it in perspective.

Next, you will notice the end part (which engages the oil pump) is installed with a pin and works sort of like a little U-Joint...image below. Carefully drive the pin out, set it aside and remove that piece. Note which side faced where on the gear (I scratched a little mark on both for reassembly).

Mark a line about .16" back from the original radius end as you see below and identify it by wrapping a piece of masking tape around the shaft. Now with a bench grinder carefully and slowly re-create that radius cut at this new location (move it backwards on the shaft, basically). You can see this below also. I used the bench grinder to roughly make the cut and a common round file and some 180 sandpaper to dress it up a bit. You will notice the tip looks too long now. We'll fix that next.

Check your measurements...we're creating a shaft that mimics the OEM distributor dimensionally and that is important as it lines the gear up correctly with the gear on the camshaft...but as I said check your measurements, please. It helps if you have a points distributor to compare. Once you have the radius cut made, remove about .16" from the tip end with a hacksaw and file to remove any sharp edges. You can leave it a bit long if you want. Maybe remove .14" and adjust later with a file. Easy to remove material. Difficult to add it. You can see my finished piece below. Place this back on the shaft as it was originally installed and replace the retaining pin. You've finished the hardest work so enjoy a cup of tea now.

The diameter of the part which enters the engine is correct for the Stovebolt (and it includes a sealing O-ring), but you'll need to remove the flange and file that area of the shaft down carefully to match the other (larger) part of the shaft because the flange for the 230/250/292 is incorrect for the 216/235/261. More about that in the next post...