copper wire wrapped around distributor shaft

[geezee]

I do have some pictures of this, however I imagine most experienced Toyota folks will know what it is. I just replaced (3 days ago) the ignition coil in the distributor cap to cure a no start condition. Ran great for 3 days. Today it threw a check engine light and the engine was stumbling and misfiring, with a lack of power. I backed into all that I'd messed with, and upon removing the dizzy cap and rotor, I saw the base of the distributor shaft near where it enters the housing was completely wrapped in a very fine gage copper wire, along with some white thread. It apparently is coming from what I would call the 'trigger' the unit hard mounted to the distributor directly fwd of the distributor shaft within the distributor (not in the cap, its mounted to the distributor assy resident on the engine). The little thing for lack of a better term, lines up with the raised machined feature on the distributor shaft.I imagine its got windings, and they were letting go (coming loose) and wrapped on the dizzy shaft as it rotates. What is this part, it looks to mount with two screws, and in removing the copper wire from the dizzy shaft, it originated from this unit. I want to know what to buy. Trigger comes up as a crankshaft trigger, and this is not on the crank....
thanks,Z

[geezee]

I looked at a shop manual and it appears that thing is a pick up coil in the distributor. I am not sure if its replaceable or the whole distributor needs replacing.

[73sport]

In your second post your are correct. The better question is how did it get in contact with the shaft to allow this to happen?

[geezee]

No clue. Agreed, it should be in close proximity, not touching, any rotating parts. I figured it'd simply worn out like most everything else on this car seems to be doing...... I imagine its windings began to fail due to temperature/age, the frayed wires eventually getting wrapped up in the rotating distributor shaft and then that accelerating the destruction of the windings. I probably pulled a bundle 8" long of copper windings from the distributor shaft. Surprisingly, the car will actually still start, altho I don't trust driving it anywhere like this.