How rare is this part to break?
 

On start up to go get emissions testing and shipping off parts...my car started differently, idiling up and down...opened the hood and look what I found

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1190993981.jpg

Called the mechanic and said he has never heard of nipple breaking off in the vacumm retard unit

Someone in the past probably used the wrong tool to remove the distributor.....

Yikes

Don Jackson just called seems they buy parts from Pelican and they are out of this part....anyone have one ????

obsolete at the moment. that's a retard and you can live without it, but retarding the timing does help to lower HC emissions. without it attached to vacuum (vacuum at idle only), the idle will be higher because the timing is now more advanced at idle than when it was working. the total advance does not change though. so to live without it, turn down the idle speed to 950-1000 and reset the CO. to pass emissions if it isn't functioning and emissions are still a tad high, retard the timing somewhat to lower the HC and reset it after you pass. for a visual inspection, maybe glue a hose in there so it looks like it's attached.

If you can't get the OEM part it should be fairly simple to epoxy in a vacuum nipple from an auto parts store.

Or silver solder a fitting on.

Brian

Don't do it!! You'll burn up the diaphragm.

JB Weld!

John and others thank for the advice I'll just wait it out untill the part gets here...

How hard is this to change out? My mechanic said there is a spring in there that tends to fall out and they use a magent to catch it, it is pretty much straight foward change?

no spring in there. two outer screws and unhook the end of the inner arm from a dowel it slips over. probably will have to pull the distributor out, so be sure you are familiar with that procedure. get the rotor pointed to #1 notch on the distributor body and duplicate that on the reinstall. then there's usually an obvious clean area where the hold-down washer sat, so put it back in that position, then the timing is virtually the same, for those without a timing light. you can also scribe around the washer.

This just happened to a friends sc. Blocked off vacuum line and all is good now