Dizzy Talk

[elbon50]

How do members get on with torqueing the dizzy down on Mk1b please ?

BGB quotes 20 Nm (or equivalent)

I find it extremely awkward to get a small torque wrench into position to tighten the setbolt nearest the side of the engine bay

(3/8ths wrench about a foot long)

Have had to remove the cap to do the job this afternoon

PIA to say the least

[un1eash]

Never used a torque wrench, just do it up tight.

[PW@Woodsport]

Ditto, never used a torque wrench on a distributor bolt in my life.

[elbon50]

Unless one has access to a small (short) torque wrench, capable of being set down as far as 20 Nm, it will be impossible to torque the setbolts down with the engine installed

I prefer to torque them & I can & have done it

Just wondered if there is an easier way which I don't know about

[PW@Woodsport]

My Snap on digital torque wrench has an angled swivel head on it which would allow torquing of those bolts, but why? Just nip them up with a spanner, job done.

[SuperRedMR2]

Unless one has access to a small (short) torque wrench, capable of being set down as far as 20 Nm, it will be impossible to torque the setbolts down with the engine installed

I prefer to torque them & I can & have done it

Just wondered if there is an easier way which I don't know about

If you want to Talk to it Peter just talk to it. Other than that, I've never TORQUED the distributor.

You are quite anal about these things, so you may as well take the engine out so you have maximum room to do it.

[elbon50]

If folk don't want to tighten nut/bolts with a torque wrench that's OK with me

It's up to the individual

Abusive personal comment is another matter altogether Alex

[PW@Woodsport]

In 25 years as a professional mechanic, nearly 20 of those on Mr2s, i have never heard of anyone torqueing the bolts on a distributor.

Completely and utterly pointless.

Nip them up the way you would any regular bolt and forget about it, or buy the same £400 Snap on flexi headed digital torque wrench i have and set them to 20nm, insane when you think about it Peter.

However you've made a thread about it, so in order to save you £400 i've calculated that if you use a 6" long spanner, attach a hanging scale to the end of the spanner and apply 13.5 kgs of force to it, the resulting torque on the bolt will be 20.1Nm, a 5" long spanner will need 16kgs of force applied to it to get 19.9Nm, i am presuming the length of your spanner, cut one to length or you could just nip the bolts up like a sane person would.

Hope that helps

[elbon50]

I already have a selection of torque wrenches thank you Paul

Don't need any funny contraptions made up of levers & weights

As said above I have used a small one to torque the distributer setbolts to 20 Nm

I have a particular reason for wanting to tighten them to the specified torque

Oh & by the way I have been involved with cars far far longer than 25 years

Also, it seems that, according to your analysis, the people who wrote the BGB are insane

In the first place I asked a simple question which now seems to have turned into another one of those snipe at Peter excercises

[PW@Woodsport]

Crack on sir, i think you're absolutely barking.

[elbon50]

Crack on sir, i think you're absolutely barking.

Yes I'll certainly be cracking on Paul

Hopefully I'll get some positive responses to my original post in contrast to the negative ones

One thing I will own up to :

I'm very very determined & persistent

You ought to know that by now surely

[elbon50]

Tested the resistance of the HT leads

They are all well within the spec given in BGB so shall not need to replace them I think

However, two of the poles in the cap look corroded & I had to push quite hard & scratch with the meter probe to obtain a circuit through the HT lead

So a new distributer cap will be going on my shopping list

Car runs very well though

[oukie]

Peter has raised an interesting point though, one I'm inclined to share, why would the BGB give torque settings, if no one needs to use them

Do not not bother torqueing (a word?) Head bolts ?

I get the why bother it's just a distributor, but surely Toyota must of thought it was required, I'm pretty sure it's just to stop over tightening of bolts and those said bolts shearing.

[Lauren]

They're dead easy to get to on my AE86, but I wouldn't bother torqueing them.

I do torque my spark plugs in, but that's just being sensible with an ally head and all that.

But I cannot for the life of me see the point in worrying about torquing up the dizzy, I mean you just nip the bolts to hold the timing static, that's it.

If someone is kind enough to dick around to find a make of torque wrench and extension combination that allows you to torque it then that's great.

Toyota list torque ratings for pretty much everything, Chris, obviously some are more important than others.

[gnzyza]

Every bolt is more or less torqued or measured in some way at factory for consistency and reliability overall.

[PW@Woodsport]

It's a distributor bolt.

[elbon50]

I'm quite relaxed about most people being out of step with me on the issue of the distributer setbolts

I'll carry on doing what I do

Some others may want to use their grannie's old Whitworth open ended

[PW@Woodsport]

It's a distributor bolt.

[SuperRedMR2]

If folk don't want to tighten nut/bolts with a torque wrench that's OK with me

It's up to the individual

Abusive personal comment is another matter altogether Alex

It wasn't abusive Peter, I was merely letting you know that your spelling is awful.

It's also an alternate way to get to the bolts, by dropping the engine out.

[SuperRedMR2]

It's a distributor bolt.

Would you torque up oil pump bolts? I'm umming and rrr-ing about that at the moment...