what'd i break this time ?? HELP !!

[atobe]

i was replacing my spark plug wires because one of the connector came lose and was stuck on the spark plug... so when i went to put back on the cap.. there's 3 bolts holding on the cap... the top 2 went in fine... when i was screwing in the bottom one here's a picture of it




i was just lightly tighening it i heard a horrible cracking sound and surely enough i broke something that holds on that bolt... i was told all 3 was bolted to the head but it surely this one isn't.. i took it out and it's some plastic piece... i'm guessing it's the bottom of the distributor ?? i have no idea.. now there's oil leaking out of it lightly...don't tell me i have to get a new distributor for this.. any easy way out of this or should i take it to a shop ?

[white90dx]

To fix the problem, yeah, you will need a new distributor.

The oil that is leaking out is due to a leaky distributor o-ring, which you should also replace while you are in there.

That being said, I ran over 10k miles with 2/3 of those little screws holding the distributor cap on with no problems. The big hole at the bottom might be a problem, but its not really urgent.

-Charlie

[kbox]

If your oring needed replacing or if the internal seals are leaking inside your distributor you don't need to by a new one.

We have the oring and distributor seal kits in stock.

http://www.kbox.ca/catalog/index.php?cPath=44

[tarbasd]

If I understand correctly, you cracked the distributor cap. Probably worth it to replace it, because if the electric posts are out of place due to the crack, that may affect the sparks. It's cheap, like $25 or so.

The oil leak is another question: even with the cracked cap, it is not supposed to leak. If it does, it means you either have oil in the distributor (so the internal sealings are broken - you can fix it with kbox's kit) or the leak is unrelated to the crack and the oil is coming down from the O-ring. That's also a cheap fix.

[fredk]

none of my cars have that bottom bolt in, dont worry about it it cant fall off, but do check the cap

[atobe]

ok so i should be safe if i just replace the seals and get a new cap and just leave that other issue till i really need a new distributor then ?

[fredk]

thats what i would do

[Kep]

Atobe,

I think that you should remove your distributor and look to see what the actual damage is. First, so you don't need to time it when you reassemble everything, mark your distributor body position relative to the engine and your rotor position relative to the distributor and take off your distributor. Post some photos if the body is indeed broken but I suspect that it will just be the cap.

From your description it sounds like you're saying that the distributor body itself, not the cap, has broken. To the best of my recollection it is metal, not plastic and would be difficult to break. The cap however is plastic (with a little metal compression pipe in the ear). If you broke the cap ear it isn't a big deal (at least in dry weather). However, if you now are seeing oil then your inner distributor seal is probably leaking and you will need to replace the distributor (what Toyota suggests) or replace the inner seal (see kbox's link above) and go ahead and replace the outer seal. This won't fix the damaged cap if that is indeed what you crushed.

If somehow you did damage the distributor body itself then you may need to replace it. If you buy it from Toyo they separately sell the body, the two wire packs, the coil, cap & wires, and rotor or you can buy the whole assembly. Rebuilds and replacements are out there as well as used ones. I'd try to stick with Toyota OEM. The ECU gets critical engine information from two sensors of the distributor.

But again, I can't help but believe that it is just the cap. I figure the little metal compression pipe fell out and you were able to crush the ear.

Kep

[Doctor J]

Normally, when you change distributor cap, its good idea to remove connector pipe between the throttle body and AFM.