FJ60 Distributor Swap into '78 2F (1 Viewer)

[homebuiltcruiser]

My '78 fj40 was built in late '77 and had a vacuum advance distributor with points. A couple of years ago I put a Mel's ignition upgrade in it and it worked great. Since then I rebuilt the engine and during the 2 years it was down lent the distributor to a friend to work on his truck and forgot about it for a while. During that time he hooked up the mel's wrong and fried it and seems to have misplaced my distributor. I got another one off him for free and my truck is running with really bad points, I'm not even sure what year the distributor is. I'm not overall happy. I want to replace the distributor with a better unit. It seems for the price of replacing what I had I can purchase a complete FJ60 setup. I've done some searches and a lot of reading on it here on mud.

From what I've read the 60 diz should be recurved. My 2F is completely de-smogged and currently the only vacuum line is the advance off the carb to the distributor. I see a rebuilt carb in my future, but not at the moment. Can I use the 60 diz without recurving it? I would like to get it running well so I can get out on some trails this summer then rebuild the carb and recurve the dizzy in the winter...is this something you guys would see as advisable?

The simplest solution would be for my friend to find my dizzy, but that might not be an option and i'm low on cash from rebuilding my engine at this point. What do you guys think is my best option?

 

[1911]

Can I use the 60 diz without recurving it?

Yes (see below).

I would like to get it running well so I can get out on some trails this summer then rebuild the carb and recurve the dizzy in the winter...is this something you guys would see as advisable?

On a stock, not-recurved dizzy the advance curve is a little too aggressive for a de-smogged 2F. You can compensate for this by one or the other or a combination of these two methods:

1) Use a higher-octane gas, i.e. mid-grade or premium.

2) Slightly retard the base timing, just enough to keep the engine from pinging.

I ran my stock dizzy after a full de-smog for 6 months or a year before I had Jim C. re-curve and rebuild an FJ60 dizzy for me. Using higher octane gas was good enough for mine; YMMV.

 

[homebuiltcruiser]

Is the timing process the same as with the stock distributor? i.e. test light on the coil after setting the engine to 7 degrees before tdc?

It seems like this is such a simple process...but maybe it just seems so after all the work i've already done!

 

[1911]

Is the timing process the same as with the stock distributor? i.e. test light on the coil after setting the engine to 7 degrees before tdc?

It seems like this is such a simple process...but maybe it just seems so after all the work i've already done!

Yes, the timing process is the same. My 40 likes 10 degrees advance with my re-curved 60 dizzy and could probably do more than that. A dial-back timing light makes this easy, but you can just time it be ear too (advance timing until it pings under load, then back it off until it just doesn't).

 

[Fast Eddy]

There are two vacuum advance diaphrams. The inner one is the main one and the outer is the secondary. If it pings under load, try blocking off the inner port and using only the outer port.