Original post:
Have spark, fuel, cranks and almost starts


Three months of sitting I finally drove the 100 miles to fix the problem. I had a some spare parts and took my power stage off my wagon. I did not want to start with the fuel system. It did not almost start. There was no spark. I hooked up the charger to insure a full charge. Cam and crank lined up at TDC. Got better than .3V at the red and white distributor wire meaning the power stage was good. Pulled it anyway to check for corrosion, clean with nice coating of factory dielectric grease on the contrasts. Re-coated heat sink with silver processor grease. Then used my power stage anyway. Pull wire out of distributor, got spark but no spark at the plugs. Pulled a few wires, clean, no corrosion on the contacts. What? The problem kind of surprised me.
See following post.

Tom

My bad. Rebuilt the oil soaked distributor 50-75k 6 years ago. All the thin remainders of the crumbling fiber washers fell out. I replaced them with flat washers, but not enough, and not in the right location. The spin was tight but the in-out play was too much. This was determined by breaking the second rotor. The rotor was hitting the base of the contacts. Hence the shiny spots on the contact bases. Got on the road with a temporary fix of adding three washers between the cap and the distributor, one per mounting screw.

Tom

That's twice in 1 week where a rotor button has failed and caused a no start condition.....see my post in the 240 section about my 87 model 240.
My rotor button apparently had a defect surface after several years of operation.
My point is that I will from now on check for ignition at the plug rather than at the coil. It would have saved me a few headaches...and you too apparently.

I learned something new.
steve