The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop points maintenence interval?

How often should i expect to re-grind and re-gap the points on my delco ignition?
At what intervals do you guys typically peek under the distributor cap?

I'm up to 1000 miles on a set of NOS delco-remy points that seem great so far.
The cheap replacement points have a center hole in one contact where the erosion occurs on my non-holy delco points. Has anyone tried these?
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=933501&cc=1489131&jsn=858

To re-surface cratered points I've tried gradually closing them on a dremel cutoff wheel... any other methods?

Back in the dark ages when all engines ran points, the suggested interval was 10K miles or 6 months for daily drivers, whichever came first. Points that develop craters are a symptom of other problems- - - - -specifically, a bad condenser. Depending on whether it's over or under capacitance, metal will be transferred one direction or the other. I don't remember which way is which, but it's covered in most old-time service manuals. Since one point is slightly rounded and the other one is either flat, or has a hole in the middle, no matter how you choose to "file" points, it's a shade tree fix. Real mechanics seldom if ever did that, except in an emergency to get a stalled vehicle off the side of the toad and into a shop for a proper tune-up.

That hole was for "ventilation"- - - -supposedly to allow points to cool down during operation and prevent burning. It was mostly a P.T. Barnum sucker bait move that just made it difficult to set the gap accurately. Of course, the pros used a dwell meter and left the feeler gauge in the tool box.
Jerry

My guess is every 5,000 miles:
http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/chevyowner/57tom00.htm
http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/chevyowner/59tom025.htm

Good to hear from some old timers who still run points.
Among other things, this forum has me well versed in PT Barnum references!

It seems tough to know if the condenser, coil and stuff are well matched?
I've got an NOS delco-remy D203 condenser with a new cheapo-coil.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/smp-uc12


The new coil seems to crater the points a little less than the ancient one that was on there... but I'll be interested to see if these points can make it up to 5 or 10K miles as you guys mentioned.

The matchup between the coil and the condenser is an important consideration. I can remember the Mallory high performance coils and the huge condensers that were run with them- - - -so big they had to be mounted outside the distributor housing. Those coils ate points like popcorn no matter how much capacitance was added, because of high current flow through the points. 5 amps was about all any kind of point system could handle, even the dual-point distributors, because they were set up in a lead/lag configuration where one point began the current flow and the other one broke the circuit. They did allow for more total dwell than a single point system could handle, however.
Jerry