It won't happen to me (long) (1 Viewer)

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miletwo

miletwo

Joined
Aug 25, 2004
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Location
Beaverton, Oregon
Website
thatsjet.com
I seem to remember reading that this happened to somebody else on the board before, but now I have a story as well.

I bought the DUI dizzy from MAF a couple of weeks back and have been very happy with it. Last week, a day before heading out of town on business, it just stopped. No spark, nothing. Well, now that I'm back home and have had a chance to run down all possible electrical possibilities, I've finally found the problem... not electrical at all.

Like the other poster, the problem turned out to be that the distributor gear basically disintegrated. Needless to say, I was pretty bummed... I called Performance Distributors (the manufacturer) and their answer was "send the whole thing back... we'll fix it and return it to you." Obviously, that wouldn't be my first choice, this being a daily driver. So I called Man-a-Fre to see what they said about it.

Well, much to Steve-O's credit (and his boss I suppose) there is a new gear on the way from Man-a-Fre and I didn't have to pay for it. Sad that they have to eat costs when PerfDis is the one who sold a bogus gear, but... C'est la vie.

What's the best solution to this (apparently) recurrent problem? Dunno. Putting your old gear on the new dizzy will void the warranty, but if if you do choose to buy one of these otherwise great distributors, I personally would carry an extra gear with me and a punch to change it out with, at least on trail rides.

That's my $.02, good luck to all,

Jeremy Anderson
 
My question would be where did the gear or geat pieces end up?
 
same thing happened to me a couple of years ago. Took my cruiser to a good mechanic ( previows cruiser owner) ...he took a number of measurements and said the distributor dimensions were not the same as the oem distributor.

spoke with the DUI folks and they requested that I send both distributors - the DUI and my old original - and I did. asked if they used a toyota gear and they said no. Things floated along very slowly - and to make a very long story short - they sent my old distributor back and my money. No explaination.

they did not try to resolve the problem. I got my $375 back but not the $150 for towing charges - and about $70- for the mechanic. was an expensive endeavor. I was willing to pay the very high DUI price - hoping to avoid problems - just didn't work out that way for me anyhow.

Went and bought a NAPA hei setup and modified it.

There are folks very happy with the DUI setup - I just experienced some unsatisfactoy and unresolved issues. But based on my poor experience I could not recommend them.
 
Not sure if this describes your problem, but I used the info in this tech cection link:http://www.geocities.com/calcide/fj402fhei.html and haven't had a problem (knock wood). There are mentions of previous failures due to mislocating the gear or not using the Toyota gear.
 
If your toyota dist. is good put a pertronix in it and forget it. My 2 cents.
 
fj60 dizzy(and matching bits) is a MUCH better and safer dizzy upgrade and a heck of alot less money.

never catch me stuffing GM crap into a Toyota motor
 
Hey Jeremy-
What type of gear is Man-a-Fre sending you? GM or Toyota? Is the dizzy problem the reason we couldn't meet up last week? Keep me posted on the DUI deal as I am currently running 2...

Seth
 
Last edited:
BEWARE is all I've got to say..

I've ranted bout HEI's before..

Do your homework.
 
What is this non-sense? The DUI's work great. You can expect almost any company in the world to have a defective part every so often. In the last 4 months we have sold over 75 of these units. All together we have been selling them for over 3 years. We are looking at 3 or 4 customers that I can think of that have had a problem. I can only think of 2 that have had a gear break. We back everything we say about them, and so does DUI. We will fix or replace any DUI that has had a problem within the warranty period. They may not be first choice for everyone out there, but that is what we call personal opinion.

Seth, I sent Jeremy a replacement DUI gear. I do not reccomend modifying a factory gear and putting it on the DUI. :cheers:

Steve
 
Landpimp said:
fj60 dizzy(and matching bits) is a MUCH better and safer dizzy upgrade and a heck of alot less money.

never catch me stuffing GM crap into a Toyota motor
Click to expand...

Does that FJ 60 distributor use vacuum advance only or is it a combination vacuum advance/vacuum retard distributor?
 
honk said:
Does that FJ 60 distributor use vacuum advance only or is it a combination vacuum advance/vacuum retard distributor?
Click to expand...


Vacuum advance. The only years that had both were 76-77 I think, only on the CA version or something. The DUI has a vacuum and centrifical advance combination, but no retard.

Steve
 
this EXACT thing happnened to me and my cruiser is in the shop...... still (stupid dad's friend/mechanic).
 
Steve - mine broke after about 150 miles. Had a great mechanic install it just so I wouldn't mess it up. Had to have it towed to my home on the weekend and to the shop on Monday. Then extremely disappointing service from the DUI folks. My experience was expensive and a nightmare.... i assure you it was and is not nonsense. Glad other folks are satisfied - but I've seen a lot more that 3 or 4 postings on this board and others with similar concerns. I figure this little adventure cost me an additiona $250 - $300 and about a month of time trying to get it resolved. So, I don't apologize for sharing this with others that are considering a dist. swap.
 
So this "DUI" (WHY does that acronym give me the willies?) setup is an independently marketted version/conversion of a GM HEI ignition system and it's their method of conversion that's in question?
 
yup, advance/advance(high altitude) its a sweet set up

honk said:
Does that FJ 60 distributor use vacuum advance only or is it a combination vacuum advance/vacuum retard distributor?
Click to expand...
 
charlie50 said:
Steve - mine broke after about 150 miles. Had a great mechanic install it just so I wouldn't mess it up. Had to have it towed to my home on the weekend and to the shop on Monday. Then extremely disappointing service from the DUI folks. My experience was expensive and a nightmare.... i assure you it was and is not nonsense. Glad other folks are satisfied - but I've seen a lot more that 3 or 4 postings on this board and others with similar concerns. I figure this little adventure cost me an additiona $250 - $300 and about a month of time trying to get it resolved. So, I don't apologize for sharing this with others that are considering a dist. swap.
Click to expand...

I am sorry to hear this, I just started reading these posts on mud the other day. Did you buy it straight from perfomance distributors or us? I dont think if you bought it through us you would have had such a rough time getting it fixed. I dont need all of the details but I know the gear doesnt cost $250-$300. I sent one to Jeremy no charge, and the last dist. that went bad I replaced for free. Are you talking about extra labor prices?

Steve
 
Well I just got off the phone with DUI about the gear thing. I think I have them convinced that the gear needs to be changed. The gear they are using (similar to chevy) has slightly thinner gears then the Toyota does. The Toyota aslo uses a larger diameter roll pin. They did not want to drill the shaft out larger to fit a larger roll pin, so I think they may start making a new toyota (replica) gear with a smaller roll pin diameter to fit the DUI shaft. Even though we have only had a few problems with this, I would rather have none. I will keep everyone updated on the status of it, they seemed as concerned as I am with upgrading the Distributor.

Steve
 
I bought a DUI when they first were released, have not had a problem at all with it. Much improved performance (search my posts for the real reason why). Sorry to hear there have been a few gear issues.
 
The Man.
 
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