B/RB vacuum advance source?

Can someone tell me where I can find a source for an early 70's B/RB
vacuum advance? Preferably adjustable but not necessarily? I've hit
every parts store in the area and the only one that claims to be able to
get it just tried to sell me an A/LA unit (opposite rotation.) I need
the B/RB unit for an electronic ignition conversion that I'm doing to my
old Studebaker, using a '73ish MoPar distributor for the guts and a '62
Stude Autolite unit for the housing. Trying to explain that alone to
the counter help is confusing enough Anyway has anyone had any luck
finding one of these? My parts distributor has a bad diaphragm in the
vacuum advance and I'm having zippy joy finding a replacement. The
stock Stude unit won't work with the MoPar "breaker" plate sadly.

The good news is the entire conversion looks like it's going slick as
greased owl poop, just had to cut a notch in the dist. body for the
2-wire harness other than that everything so far has been 100% bolt on.
The only trick has been figuring out which pieces of which distributor
need to be used, I haven't modified anything else yet. Will be
interesting to see what my advance curve looks like though, if it's
anything usable without tweaking (guessing no, since I used the weights
and springs from the MoPar as the weights from the Stude dist. are
laminated sheet steel and notorious for wearing out and taking out the
pivots with them while the MoPar ones look like cast iron with oilite
bushings)

thanks,

nate

 

I've done several of these conversions. You will need to modify the reluctor
to correct a phase discrepency between the rotor and the cap, it amounts to
cutting a new relocated keyway in the bore of the reluctor.

For the big block vacuum advance unit try Year One, their part number is
NG1025; about $20.

http://www.yearone.com/serverfiles/fbshopmain2.asp?cat=1

 

NAPA (Echlin) or any store that carries Standard-BlueStreak. Spend a few
minutes with the older-car application catalogue and the buyer's guide;
both lines still have a great many different advances for these engines
and you should be able to get one that works the way you want it to.

Crane used to make adjustable vacuum advance units for Mopar G/RG, A, and
B/RB engines. I just got off the phone with the Crane techline, whereon
the guy claimed Crane never made any such a product.

I looked up the advance in the NAPA Echlin line for a '66 Dodge Charger
w/383 engine. This pre-smog application would seem a good match for your
'62. There are two possibilities listed: VC1165 and VC1175. Here are the
specs:

VC1165:
Advance starts at 8 to 10 In. HG vacuum

VC1175:
Advance starts at 4.5 to 8 In. HG vacuum

No spec is given (rats!) for the total amount of advance these units
provide, but that's not a big deal...you can read it right off the pull
arm; the number is given in distributor degrees (e.g. "6.5R" or "7X")
which you double to get crankshaft degrees (ignore the letter after the
number).

 

You mean like Ebay 4500838245 .

I love how Year One pretends that just one vacuum advance, which *fits*
all B/RB single-point or electronic distributors, *works* in all of them.

 

Hey, Ehrenberg, what's wrong with Stuttgart? (but neat idea anyway)

Well, sure, it'll work. Just how well is the question. Actually if you
keep your foot flat to the floor you'll never notice a difference

nate

 

The store I went to first carries GB/Sorensen, this is where I got the
wrong unit. unfortunately I do not have a NAPA store handy but I did
find one that carries standard stuff so I will make a note of the
numbers you posted (hopefully they cross OK.)

Man, I hate when companies do that. "What do you mean you never made
it? I'm holding one in my fuckin' hand, and I'd like to buy another."
It's one thing to discontinue a product but another entirely for your
tech. support line to be forking stupid.

Hmm, now I guess I need to crack open the Stude shop manual again...
where the heck did I put that thing... I know it's got the advance
curves in there somewhere...

thanks for the reply, it's more useful than you know

nate

 

Hi

I believe all elecronic vacuum advances are adjustable so any one WILL work.

Larry

 

Good luck with that. I've been meaning to drive up to my local
Standard-Bluestreak jobber; I need some catalogues for another project I'm
working on. If I get them any time soon I'll share the info with you.

 

Oh, one more dumb question - are the points style and early non-lean
burn electronic units the same format? same arm shape, etc.? That
would give me more options should I choose to play with the vac advance
down the road I suppose. I just ASSumed that the Chrysler breaker plate
was the same as the Studebaker breaker plate and therefore the vac
advances were different points vs. electronic. (as my '62 Stude vac
advance is most definitely not directly interchangeable with the busted
'73? MoPar unit, which is the whole reason for this line of inquiry.)

nate

 

Same body shape, same attachment points. Arm shape is a little different;
later arms attach to the reluctor plate at a point further in towards the
center of the distributor, but the pickup plates are double-drilled for
the further-out and the further-in arm attachment point, so you can use
either type of advance with a '73-up pickup plate. If you happen to have
an early-production pickup plate not double-drilled, no big deal; I'm sure
you have a drill.

 

Cool. I've pretty much verified based on your msg. that I have a '73
production plate (well, at least the number on the vac advance turned
out to be a '73 number) and it does appear to have two holes like you
describe. So that means I can use either/or right?

Dang, now I wonder if I really need another unit at all. That looks a
lot like the old Stude unit might fit that, if I hadn't left it at my
friend's garage on Sunday. D'oh. Je suis idiot. Had I had a
MoPar-savvy friend handy to point out the extra hole (it's kinda hidden
under the pickup) I could quite possibly have had this in and running on
Sunday and I could be doing some half fast recurving by now.

nate

 

Yep.

DS

 

I'd like to know that also. Mopar electronic distributors last FOREVER
(no side-load whatsoever on the bushings) except for the vacuum advance.
The only way I know to get a new vacuum advance unit is to buy a
rebuilt distributor, put its vacuum advance on my old distributor, and
throw the "reman" distributor in the attic in case I ever get desparate
enough to be forced to use questionable junk some day...

The really sad thing is that whenever I find a junkyard distributor with
a vacuum advance that doesn't leak, I grab it and use it and even though
it may be nearly 40 years old, it lasts longer than the new cr*ppy ones
they put on cr*ppy re-manufactured distributors :-/

Interesting project you've got going, BTW. If you need to re-curve the
Mopar unit, there are a lot of different advance springs that have been
used over the years. Lightweight springs (fast advance) are easy to come
by at speed shops or online, but if you need to slow the advance down
you have to go junkyard diving. One interesting thing to note is that
stock Mopar setups had one "light" and one "heavy" spring, but the heavy
spring had a slotted end hook so it didn't do ANYTHING until the very
end of the advance curve. IOW, running two stock "light" springs will
actually SLOW the advance curve up to the point where the "heavy" spring
would finally kick in, at which point it becomes faster. Not usually a
problem, though, as speeding up the curve at the tail end of the curve
(higher RPM) generally doesn't cause problems.

 

Last time I checked, single-point vacuum can doesn't even *fit* in an
electronic distributor.

 

BZZT. That would be a single-point, he needs an electronic distributor.
The housings are the same, but the advance mechanisms don't swap because
the pivot plate for points differs from the pivot plate for a reluctor.
Something like a '72 C-body (440 or 383) would be a good starting point.

If you can actually FIND such an animal for sale retail, let me know!

 

No, that's a SMART question. As I mentioned in a couple of other posts,
they don't interchange. Been there, done that, said "shit."

 

Are you SURE that this is true for B/RB distributors, and not just for
LA and G/RG distributors? If it were that easy, I would have drilled
mine and not said "shit" all those years ago. IIRC when you bolt a
single-point B/RB advance can on an electronic B/RB distributor, the
attachment arm doesn't even overlap with a spot where there IS plate. It
sticks up in a gap.

 

Sure, if you'd rather spend 40 bucks for something that takes five minutes
to do yourself.

"Fits" and "works" are relative terms, since the swap in question requires a
little more than bolting parts together, the "fits" is correct; the "works"
depends on how fussy one is.

 

Naw, they aren't. Something fits properly or it doesn't. Something works
properly or it doesn't.

Wanting an engine to run properly is not being "fussy".

 

It's true for the ones I've seen, and apparently for the one Nate's
working with.