Today a Moke owner told me of an unusual problem. He reports that the distributor on his Moke is somehow catching and rotating, - with disastrous results. Ie. the whole distributor rotates (briefly!) and destroys itself. He started the engine today for me, and it was running but missing badly. He is afraid to run it because he suspects that the replacement unit will destroy itself too. Sorry I don't have more info, it seems weird to me. I could see nothing obvious wrong with the distributor. I'm wondering if anyone else has ever heard of this problem??
It sounds like the shaft bearing grabbing for some reason?

I don't know if different distributors were used on Mokes, the number is AKPPB1/102525

So has he pulled the dissy out and tried another one ? Most mini dissys will fit to get it to run , otherwise it'll be a deeper problem i would think .

"the whole distributor rotates (briefly!) and destroys itself" isn't really a useful description of the symptoms. It could be as simple as the clamp needs to be done up, or more sinister that the bush in the bottom has worn to the point where the whole shaft is binding, or all sorts of other things...

I'd suggest pulling the distributor out and turning it by hand with the cap off to see what it's doing....

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A friend with an Austin 1800 had that happen to him when the spindle turned the distributor and stopped the car. He was a BMC mechanic and rebuilt the distributor. I can't remember if he modified it but he put it down to lack of lubrication.

araldite may fix it

Thanks to everyone for the responses. I will pass them on.

That happened many years ago on my Mk2 Austin 1800 ute, dissy just seemed to seize up suddenly and shut down the engine. Swapped in another dissy that worked ok.

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You might find that at some stage in the distributor's life some one tightened the clamp too much and cracked or broke the base of the dizzy where the clamp tightens. 25D and 23 D distributors were known for this. Besy is to replace it and don't go crazy tightening the clamp.

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