Mallory YC any good?

[Heo]

I bought a bunch of Mallory breakerles dists 25 years ago
i thought they where unilites and Cleveland. But Battlestar
said they where YC so i had to check. I only found four of them
they where YCs but low and behold i think one is a FE

slightly disasembled but the parts is in a ziplock bag and there are several boxes with spareparts
and i should have atleast 8 i think, brand new
Can be some unilites among those i dont found beacuse im sure i saw unilite on some tag or paperwork

[FERoadster]

I've got about 10 Mallory distributors and many other brands.
A side viee of the cap would help (is it 2 piece?) and a picture of the tag riveted to the side.
If it's around 25------ then it's a newer Mallory. If it begins with a YC or Y??? then it's an earlier version.
A picture of the interior  ie.. points setup would also help
I do have the Mallory catalog on my computer but not searchable so I've go to look at around 30 pages.

Richard >>> FERoadster

[cammerfe]

What popped into my head is 'YL', but after thinking a bit, I believe the 'YC' is correct. I'm going back a lot of years. (My first Mallory diz was for my '53 Merc flathead.) That is assuredly a 2-piece (actually a three piece if you count the rubber insert that goes between the two Bakelite pieces). You can see the screws that squeeze the hard pieces together and cause the seal around the plug wires.

KS

[BattlestarGalactic]

That should be a YC model.  The YL was the std one piece cap.  The YL came in dual point, and later Unilite.  My YL was DP, but put a unilite in it maybe 15 yrs ago.  Both my YC and YL are tach drive models.   I also have a YL crab cap/tach drive boat distributor I got off a forum member years ago.  I was going to use the crab cap on the blower motor, but found the body was taller then a std cap which makes the cap the same height at a std version.  Thus not giving me any more room under the blower drive.    The distributor bodies are just slightly smaller on a crab cap so you can't interchange the cap without turning the body down like 1/16".  Doable, but just never got around to it.

I bet you can still get basic wear parts for the YC?  I know I put a bunch of stuff in mine, but gave up on it and switched to a YL.  Never did figure out why the total timing was all over the place.  Nothing appeared bad, but it was very random.  I suppose if you locked it out, it would work fine. 

[Heo]

The distributor body looks to be a real quality piece with
lube ..point or what to call it. I know some of them have
tach drive i hope i find one FE with tach drive as i have a Moroso
mec,Tach, i think it was. I know those electronic dist. had a bad rep around
here, but often i found out that's owner problem .
And i have a bunch of spareparts so.... I googled YC 343-hp that's
on the tag and that's for 390/428 so now i have a dist. for the
stroker
The paperwork that's with them is printed 7/69 so 50 years ago
I remember when my fathers 1920 Modell-T was 50 years

[cammerfe]

FWIW, 'crab' caps come (perhaps came) in more than one diameter. When we were working up the TP (Holley EFI) engine for Brother Lon's Mustang, I got Mallory---still in Detroit at that time, I believe, To make an adapter ring to go on a small-diameter-body Unilite diz. This made it possible to use the large diameter crab cap. It was also necessary to use a rotor with an extended contact arm. It worked a charm and made it possible for the ignition components to fit together with the EFI pieces and the custom ball-milled, red anodized air cleaner. Made a great cover car for Super Ford Magazine to go with the article of the first dual-throttle-body EFI FE engine.

KS

[BattlestarGalactic]

Pretty sure they don't come in two sizes anymore.  Maybe a long time back.

I used to run one in my 302 back in the mid 80's.  The only problem was the cap material was so brittle, it would crack and misfire in just a few months of running.  I gave up after buying a couple replacement caps in a very short time. 

That is my other holdup from using it in the blower motor.  Especially since the body is too tall which makes it impossible to remove the cab with the blower still on the motor.  That is why I wanted a crap cap to begin with.  If it was going to be another constant source of breakage, I don't want it.  I'm still running the '64 stock distributor in the car, only now it has a unilite in it.  I wanted a tach drive so I could use one of my old tachs and cables I have gathered up for it.

[cammerfe]

I believe the larger diameter crab cap was intended for a Mallory magneto. The one Lon used lasted very well. I think crab caps were originally intended for marine applications.

KS

[Tommy-T]

I bought a Mallory YC distributor from the Super Shops here in SoCal back in the mid 70's.

I ran it in my 390 Mustang for a few years before going back to a Ford dual point with an Allison electronic conversion.

Just recently I modified the YC for use in my quad dual M/T cross ram. I took it apart to lock out the advance. It's easy on those because you can limit/adjust the movement of the centrifugal weights by loosening the limiting bolts and sliding the weights in a slot to where you want the limit to be. Originally the distributor came with a key so you'd know where to adjust the weights.

After I had adjusted the weights for locking out the timing...I noticed that the rotor still had some "springy" movement or advance.

On the bottom of the bottom plate there is a slot and spring that allows movement of the rotor for a reason unbeknownst to me, but it could cause "mystery" timing fluctuations.

I JB Welded the slot closed and now the rotor does not have that slack in it.

[BattlestarGalactic]

Hmmm, interesting Tommy.  I've never had mine apart that far.  I'll have to take a lookie see and find out if that was the problem with mine.  It worked perfect, then suddenly it was all over the place, car ran in 1/2 second swings randomly.  Thus it got replaced.

I could get it back working and use in the blower car?  Then I could put the mech tach in it too!  Double win.