I am looking for a shaft for my Buick 455 1970. People say Buick distributors are rather interchangeable. The 350 distributor is supposed to fit if the gear is changed. Does this go for all year models of the 350? Does it also apply to the 300 distributors? Then going forwards, are all 455 distributors interchangeable in this same way? Is it only the assembly as a whole that is interchangeable, or are the shaft and housing also equal? The 1970 Buick 455 is supposed to be have the 1111984 distributor, but I have a 1112104 distributor on which is from some other year model.
I believe you can just swap the gear on any small block Buick distributor, and it will fit the big block. That includes even the 215-300, and 340. If you look at the applications for say, the TA ready to run electronic distributor, it includes those engines. The gear, and the advance curve would be the only differences between stock production distributors over the years. http://taperformance.com/proddetail.asp?prod=TA_724B
The distributors are, as Larry said, physically interchangeable. However I believe not all the parts are. If you are looking for a new shaft be sure it matches your old one where the weights are. I've seen some different top plates/advance plate. Of course this could be due to interchanges between different years made during a repair since these are now 50+ years old! Is your shaft worn? Could be just the bushings? Why do you think you need a new shaft?
My distributor had a really worn bushing and the shaft became scored over the whole bushing contact area. Discovered this by chance before anything really bad happened. I think the deepest scratches were around 0.1 m.m. So a new bushing would probably wear out fast, while sprinkling debris into the engine. Some day I might try to fix it if I get my hands on a lathe and some others tools on my wish list I guess the shaft could be sleeved. Or perhaps you could build up the scratches using welding or soldering, but would probably be hard avoiding warping the shaft.
Isn't the HEI gear different diameter on the ID? This would mean the HEI shaft has a different diameter?
I think the roll pin is bigger on the HEI. Pretty sure you can just drill out a points gear to use the bigger roll pin.
my 2 cents - Used distributors are cheap and plentiful. You would be much better off getting another distributor or 2 to rebuild. Or buy the TA unit. I know shipping is a b*t*ch but its much less painful than the repair you are contemplating.
Yes, maybe. I found some interesting distributors on ebay, Also still seriously considering some of the TA performance distributors, but they would be 350-450 USD at arrival when shipping and taxes are paid.
