On my 200,6 I have a hose going to the distributor for retarding the advance. Do I need this ? Is there anyway that this could hamper the vacuum advance from working properly ? I would like to remove it all right from the intake header, Has anybody pulled this stuff off of theirs ? Thanks
I pulled the hose off of mine, dropped a ball-bearing in the hose, and put it back on. Worked for me.
Craig shouldn't the hose going to the back port on your distributor be free flowing ? I would think if it's pluged you would pull a vacuum when your trying to advance your timing ? Get my drift
I think it'll work plugged or not but what I do is remove the vac tree that operates it(if there is one), route the hose into a inconspicuous location and just leave it open...
Shoot....I don't know. My uncle was a mechanic for years and years at a Ford dealership (1950's thru the 1970's). He said that is what they always did to fix the problem....and it left all the hoses hooked up.
On some distributors, there is a vacuum advance, and a vacuum retard. We are blocking off the retard function.
Plugging it with a bearing would be a really good solution. It would cause a perpetual neutral state on both sides of the bearing and have no effect on the rest of the system. The side that wants to increase or decrease vacuum (I'm not gonna look it up) can suck (or... blow...) against the bearing all it wants and won't know its not working to retard the advance. And the advance side would never notice. Great solution that leaves the vacuum hoses looking stock.
Yup, back in the day it was routine to just drop in the little check ball on the retard side and that was that. Not only 6's had them. Many factory V8's had them too, including the 351 used in the Shelby.
It was an emission thing. When the engine is idling or decelerating, intake manifold vacuum is high and carburetor vacuum is low. Under these conditions, intake manifold vacuum, applied to the inner side of the dual diaphragm, retards ignition timing to promote more complete combustion of the air fuel mixture in the engine combustion chambers.
I wish we could do that on the site sometimes. But seriously, I have never heard of this. My 71 200 has two hoses. So we're blocking the one closest to the distributor?
It might be blocked already - pull off the inside hose and see if you get vacuum through it. Even my low milage car had it already blocked when I got it. It was a very common thing to do it the repair shops.
