Vacuum Unit replacement

[Reinaldo]

Hello,

 

I am starting to dive into more details in my 1959 TR3A that I recently bought.

The vaccum pipe was broken on the connection point to the vaccum unit.

I try to suck air through the pipe and it is clearly leaking.

General condition of the car and engine seems to be good.

Engine runs OK except when iddling (one reason must be the open pipe to the vacuum unit) and with higher revs (when the vacuum unit should work but it doesn´t).

But I have no assurance that the distributor as a whole is in a good shape. What I can see is that it has a pointless eletronic device connected to an external ballast resistor.

But as an immediate remedy I am planning to buy a vacuum unit. I search here on this forum with no success.

As possible suppliers I found Moss UK (p/n 503697 for £49.00) and SCParts (p/n 213196 £190.35).

Is there anybody here with experience on this?

I am trying to avoid to mail the distributor abroad for servicing it, but I might be carrying it with me in a future trip to Europe or US.

Thanks,

Reinaldo

[ianc]

The Distributor Doctor (Martin Jay) is THE man. Have a look at his website: www.distributordoctor.com

All reports on this Forum and from elsewhere say that you could not find a better man to resolve your problems.

Apart from the fact that I have known Martin for some 20 years, I have no interest to declare!

Ian Cornish

[stuart]

Absolutely! Distributor doctor every time.

Stuart

[TR3BGeorge]

Reinaldo, I just bought one for my B. TRF has nothing, but Moss gives you a choice of 4 pipes, depending on what type of fittings you want on the ends. None matched my setup, so I bought some copper tubing and did it myself. The distributor end was easy: just used a 3" piece of hose from the pipe to the vacuum.

 

The front carb was a little different. The PO had left a 3-inch "stump" of the previous copper pipe attached to the carb, and flattened the end and bent it 90 degrees to ensure that it was closed. So, I cut off the bent part, and used another 3" piece of hose to make the connection. It works fine now.

 

Hindsight: I didn't know what I was doing, as I was trying to fit Moss' pipe to the unthreaded hole in the intake manifold. Once I checked a friend's B and realized that it went into the bottom of the front carb, I was able to find the "stump" coming out of the carb. I removed the stump and its fitting, but Moss' fitting wasn't the right threads, so I sent it back to them and received my refund immediately, including shipping. Then I bought the pipe and hose.

 

It is quite an easy application. If Gordon Badwrench can do it, ANYONE can do it.

 

I hope this helps.

[Reinaldo]

George,

 

Yes your message has been quite usefull to me.

I just bought the new vacuum unit (thanks to this forum from Martin Jay of Distributor Doctor) and so I will face the same type of issues you went through.

I noticed the 4 options from Moss a while ago and is good to know that it does not work very well.

My connection at the side of the carb looks OK. At the side of the vaccum unit the copper pipe was broken, but it seems to be easy to reconstruct the original connection.

No rubber hose is installed in my case and I guess that to deal with the engine vibration the 3" piece of hose that you describe would work better.

Thanks,

 

Reinaldo

==============================================================

Reinaldo, I just bought one for my B. TRF has nothing, but Moss gives you a choice of 4 pipes, depending on what type of fittings you want on the ends. None matched my setup, so I bought some copper tubing and did it myself. The distributor end was easy: just used a 3" piece of hose from the pipe to the vacuum.

 

The front carb was a little different. The PO had left a 3-inch "stump" of the previous copper pipe attached to the carb, and flattened the end and bent it 90 degrees to ensure that it was closed. So, I cut off the bent part, and used another 3" piece of hose to make the connection. It works fine now.

 

Hindsight: I didn't know what I was doing, as I was trying to fit Moss' pipe to the unthreaded hole in the intake manifold. Once I checked a friend's B and realized that it went into the bottom of the front carb, I was able to find the "stump" coming out of the carb. I removed the stump and its fitting, but Moss' fitting wasn't the right threads, so I sent it back to them and received my refund immediately, including shipping. Then I bought the pipe and hose.

 

It is quite an easy application. If Gordon Badwrench can do it, ANYONE can do it.

 

I hope this helps.

 

[Reinaldo]

Ian and Stuart,

 

Thanks for the indication. I just ordered the vacuum unit from Martin.

 

Regards,

Reinaldo

============================================================================================

 

The Distributor Doctor (Martin Jay) is THE man. Have a look at his website: www.distributordoctor.com

All reports on this Forum and from elsewhere say that you could not find a better man to resolve your problems.

Apart from the fact that I have known Martin for some 20 years, I have no interest to declare!

Ian Cornish

 

[TR3BGeorge]

Reinaldo, I just realized that I omitted the obvious. If you don't want to mess around with pipes and their cockamamie fittings, you can just run a length of rubber hose from the carb to the vacuum unit. Cheaper, easier, quicker, and uglier. I have seen it done this way on some TRs. Good luck - keep us posted.