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Pretty sure we have a new one with centre drive

Happy to exchange if it is new........

It is new without dizzy cap - best for me to send it to you and you try it to see if it is all ok - when you are satisfied send me the other one - P&P £5

Ok, that sounds like a plan, thanks.

Managed to locate a reconditioned distributor from Ebay and fitted it last night.

However I am unable to set the timing as the mark on the crankshaft is moving about so much that you cannot tell exactly where it is. The Ford Fiesta one was the same but I thought it was because of the home made end on it being loose.

Result is the car is running like a bag of nails.

Presuming that this new distributor is OK any ideas what could be wrong?

Have you checked the slot in your oil pump - I know with the offset drive one of the sided=s has a weakness and can break off - if it is a centre drive that should not happen - if you take the rotor arm of and see if there is any rotary play in the shaft or any side to side movement.

The tick over should be low enough not to make the advance weights to come into play. If they are just beginning to advance then the timing can behave like this, especially if the weights are sticky. Slow the tick over down and see if it stabilises. You should also have the vacuum pipe disconnected and the vacuum pipe to the carb plugged to keep the mixture stable.

The mystery deepens, it transpired that I had set the timing on 4 instead of 1 hence the reason it was misfiring so I reset the timing to 1 and it is worse, it will not start just pops and bangs out of the exhaust.

Is there something strange about setting the timing on a 1256?

Q- You have set the firing order correctly haven't you? 1-3-4-2 The cracks bangs and misfires sounds like two of the leads are on the wrong cylinders.

Also, if you follow a Haynes manual there really is very little you can get wrong.

Yes leads are correct, I agree it couldn't be simpler but it has three of us scratching our heads now.....

Next job is to try the Fiesta distributor back in and see what happens from there.