[JL8Jeff]

After work I decided to look into the distributor. Since the cap, coil, rotor, wires and plugs are new they all looked fine. But the HEI distributor itself is showing it's age poorly. The weights were rusty and had a bunch of paint overspray on them. The springs were even worse, rusty and paint too. So I cleaned up the weights and dug out some new springs from an old recurve kit I had sitting around. I made sure the weights and springs were moving freely and cleaned up the rotor a little as well. I want to get an new HEI but this is all I could do for now. I put it all back together and fired it up with a vacuum gauge on it. It seems to be running fine and the miss type noise isn't really there like it was. The vacuum reading was around 15 at idle with a slightly vibrating needle. It was 20-22 as you slowly revved it up and it was nice and smooth. The Holley 750 carb has been jerked around with so I have no idea what the real condition of it is and I don't care since I have an original 780 to put back on it. I think it could use some valve adjustment but overall the engine seems pretty tight. It does burn a half a quart of oil every couple hundred miles so it's not as tight as it could be. But it's a solid lifter 396 and it seems to be running fine!