202 Distributor Repairs

On two occaisons i have stripped the drive gear on my distributor in my holden vk commodore. The first time my mate tried to remove the dizzy from the car when the engine was running. The second time i was accelerating fairly hard, and as i changed up a gear, it suddenly lost all power and then stopped and wouldn't restart.

The 202 engine would turn over but refused to start. We took off the air filter, to check to see if there was evidence of a fuel blockage, and when we tried to start it a flame shot from the carby. Eventually the problem was traced to a stripped distributor drive cog. Apparently this is a fairly common fault in older holden engines, such as the black 202 motor.

The first time this happened i just bought another distributor from a holden wreckers. The second time it happened i thought bugger this and decided to see if the cog alone could be replaced. I took it to repco and the bloke there told me it could, he even put the new one on the distributor for me. You can buy a replacement one made of plastic or metal, but i decided to get another plastic one because it is easier to replace that if it strips again than having to replace the gear that drives it.

To replace the distributor drive cog, you knock the pin out of the gear with a centre punch. You can then slide off the old gear, push on a new one, whack the pin back in and she's all good. You then have to reinstall the distributer, and make sure the timing is right.