QuestionI have a 1986 ford pickup ranger. 2.3 l 4 cyl. I can not find how to tighten the distributor. Please help.
Answer My first question would be, how did it get loose? If you went out one day and it wouldn't start, and you grabbed the distributor and it turned freely in its' hole, then something broke. I've worked on some 2.3 Fords, and don't recall exactly how the distributor is retained, but I'll give you my best guess. If you look at the block next to the distributor, there should be a bolt hole. A small clip fits over this hole and pinches the little flange on the distributor against the block, preventing it from turning. If this bolt fell out or was removed, then the distributor would be loose. But, I never heard of this happening. If that actually is the case, buy a new bolt and hold-down from the Ford dealer and put some Loctite on the bolt.
Now, if you are under the impression that the distributor is loose because the timing won't stay fixed, there is another probable answer. The distributor is driven by a short accessory drive shaft that lives in the block where a camshaft would go if it wasn't up in the cylinder head. For the sake of mechanical economy, the shaft drives the gear on the distributor, and the distributor, via a small hexagonal shaft that fits into the bottom end of it's shaft, drives the oil pump. What usually happens when a Ford engine gets old is that the valve seals deteriorate, get hard, and break into pieces that end up in the oil pan. Eventually one of these pieces will get sucked into the oil pump pick-up tube. They are too big to pass between the gears in the pump easily, and will momentarily jam the pump. This causes the load on the pin in the distributor shaft which secures the drive gear to shear, allowing the shaft to turn inside the gear, thus disrupting the timing of the spark, and the engine will start to run funny, and get worse quickly. The gear is on there so tight that, even with the pin sheared, it still continues to turn the shaft, but can no longer be trusted to keep time. While the pin could be replaced, most mechanics would replace the whole unit with a rebuilt distributor from a local parts store. Replacing the pin can be done, I have done it, but the gear only goes on one way, and getting it situated and then finding the right size roll pin to fit the hole can be frustrating. Either way, buy a new oil pump drive shaft to go from the the distributor to the oil pump, it may have been overstressed by the event and only costs a couple of bucks. Hope you figure it out.
