Electronic Ignition

Tony that set up was the one Billy was recommending.I went to put one on my Mallory YL,but I could not get the points cam to come off and didn't want to wreck anything,so I'm back to the points.

Gary S wrote: surroundsound64 wrote: Don't get one of the conversion kits, such as ignitor. I've used 3 different makes and they all worked for about 20 hours before becoming unreliable I have a theory on this,I think it's down to distributor grounding. My Dads Shamrock was going thru condencers like crazy.Being a center consol it was hard to work on. He finally decided to go with a pertronix so he pulled the distributor to make it easier and found the clamp and the base of the distributor rusty.He cleaned it up and also ran a seperate ground from the distributor body to the block, and then installed the pertronix unit.1100 hours later when he sold it,it was still running strong. He also carried the parts and tools to change back to the points should he have a failure. By the way I too am still running points,I like the retro look of my Mallory YL mechanical tach drive flatcap distributor.

Hum... May be! Hadn't thought of that. Either way, I have the DUI now and love it. Boat never started so easy or accelerated so smoothly.

Yea your right maybe I do need to calm down. Think I'll go for a boat ride tonight. Finally got the motor and tranny back in and and had a test ride this afternoon.. No hard feelings and sorry to you as well.. If I;m still allowed I will continue to bounce around CC fan . Maybe I just won't have any input.. Thanks

Stan - You give up to easy!     Diversity is a good thing for any organization, otherwise it gets tunnel vision.

Stay engaged.   FWIW I like my Prestolite EI, plugs stay much cleaner than with points & it starts on the first piston up.

Jim,
It's some of the conversions that aren't reliable.

28 years or about 600 hours. Never replaced a condensor. Never needed to clean up the point set even on spring start up. Never needed to adjust the dwell. BTW, the Y block ran great and always turned it's WOT 4400. I just felt it was time for a tune up one day after thinking about how many years it had been!!

I did have a problem with my 54, 20 years after I did the engine rebuild but it wasn't the point set or condensor. The plug wire ends in the distributor cap had turned green with copper oxide. A new cap, new plug wires and some dielectric grease solved that issue!

Welcome to CCfan!

Thanks for the welcome Pete (I hope that's right).

It's kinda funny, I've owned my '75 for almost 7 years now and just changed the sea water pump impeller and points/condensor for the first time. I tried to order the Pertronix conversion kit last summer and to my dismay discovered it was not in anyway compatible with my distributor (Mercruiser 233R, completely original). I set/cleaned the points, replaced the cap and rotor (standard motorcraft pre-1975 auto parts, and yes they are the "correct" marine parts also)and kept on boating.

Went to start up the boat this spring and cranked and cranked and cranked.... So I start looking, check for fuel, yup, got that, check for spark...nothing! Thinking the points had given up I open up the distributor and....no friggin points or condenser, apparently they grew legs and walked away!!

I spent 2 days trying to figure what replacement points to buy, 2 local Mercury dealerships were useless, I finally ended up talking to a woman at a local bumper to bumper that still had an old marine catalog, sure enough they had a listing for my engine, the woman recognized the part numbers as being Holley parts, cross referenced them to some old Chrysler parts and sure enough, the points are Holley parts that are also used on older Chrysler motors. And luckily they had one of each in stock, back on the water in 20 minutes after installing points/condenser and setting the dwell and timing!

The next day I ordered a new mallory Billet electronic distributor, it should be here middle of next week. I didn't buy the mallory unit because I think points are unreliable either, I did it because I don't want to have to go searching for points the next time some @%$^$ decides they need them more than me, for some reason neither of the two local Mercury dealerships, both of which have been around 20 years or more, have a clue about parts for my motor, I'll be waiting longer for the spare set of points I ordered last weekend than for the Mallory distributor, which I had to buy out of the states (I am in western Canada).

Jim,
So, what happened to the point set that was missing? They sure didn't disappear on their own!! Do you know what happened to them?