MSD 8595 "Ready to Run" distributor seems "Ready to Stop"

[Yellow Truck]

Put in an new 6AL box, 8595 distributor, new wires, and it ran for about 200 yards. The whole neighbourhood seemed to get involved to help me turn it around and tow it back to my place.

Looks like a bad pickup in the distributor. I looked at the distributor on Summit to check something the other day (before I installed it) and was surprised at the really, really bad reviews of this part. Not huge numbers, but out of six reviews, four said they had all failed.

Mine lasted about 10 minutes of running time before packing it in. Curious what the folks on here who build engines have had as experiences with these?

[Barry_R]

Unfortunate.  My success rate here with literally dozens has been about 100% with new units.  I think I replaced pickups on a couple used units.

[jayb]

I must have 5 or 6 of those 8594 distributors, and have never had a problem, although they have been purchased quite a few years ago.  Maybe a recent quality issue or something?  FYI I have always had pretty good customer service from MSD, I'd send it back to them and have them look at it...

Edited to change the part number, per Kevin's post below; sorry I missed that.  Maybe that built-in ignition module in the 8595 is the issue, rather than the pickup. 

[chilly460]

I've had to put two magnetic pickups in my MSD in relatively few miles.  It's not a big deal to replace but the fact that it leaves you dead in the water is a pain.  I have a spare in the glovebox now....

[machoneman]

O/T but the pickup in my Mallory Unilite, since 1st run in 1994, has had zero issues for 23 years. My old, really old MSD 7A box (circa 1977!) did fail in the same Mach 1 a few years ago but it stranded me only 20 some miles from home.

[thatdarncat]

Before this thread goes too far, I'm just going to point out that MSD makes a #8595 "ready to run" distributor that doesn't need a external box and a #8594 distributor that does require a box. I'm pretty sure Jay has the #8594 MSD distributors, but he can correct me if I'm wrong. I just wanted to bring that up since maybe if there is a quality issue it lies more in one unit than the other. I've had a #8594 for about 20 years and never had any trouble. I have a racing friend that has a MSD 8584 ( not "ready to run" ) on a 351W that had a pickup go bad, but at the same time he had created some wiring issues trying to add a high idle solenoid to his car. He is, shall we say, wiring challenged. We can't say for sure the two things were related, but he didn't have anymore issues once he gave up on the solenoid idea. 

I'm a little confused by Yellow Truck's post since he says he has the "ready to run" #8595, but also has a MSD 6al box. That may be possible to do, I don't know, I've never run the "ready to run" distributor, but I guess my first question would be why also have the 6al box? I'd have to look at the #8595 instructions, is there anything you have to do "turn off" or bypass the distributors internal box before connecting the external box?

[turbohunter]

I have an 8595 and had to send it back to MSD unused. Bad pick up, so it does happen.
Been trouble free ever since.
Kevin the MSD instructions show (IIRC) how to install with or without a box. I can check if you desire.

Looked it up
Here you go
http://documents.msdperformance.com/8595.pdf

[Yellow Truck]

Thanks for the replies. That is encouraging. I have a note into MSD since last night. In one of the little quirks that works for me, they are actually in my timezone, so I'll hear from them in a couple of hours.

[thatdarncat]

Kevin the MSD instructions show (IIRC) how to install with or without a box. I can check if you desire.

Looked it up
Here you go
http://documents.msdperformance.com/8595.pdf

Yeah, I figured there was a way...so, looking at the instructions I see the MSD 6al is "white wire" triggered by the "ready to run" distributor, so a person has to be sure and not wire the "orange" MSD 6al wire to the "orange" 8595 distributor wire. I'm just bringing that up since it could be an easy mistake to make. I would check all the grounds too, many times electrical issues can be traced to grounding issues. Be sure where you have the distributor grounded, like maybe on the engine, doesn't have a gasket somewhere in the path. Just trying to help with some simple ideas.

[cjshaker]

I'm guessing also that Barry and Jay were talking about the 8594. And likely the people who had the 8595 fail were about the only ones to leave reviews on Summit.

The 8595 uses the same pickup as the 8594, as well as most all MSD distributors. Pickups can fail, and new electrical parts can fail. I had one fail last year that drove me nuts. It was intermittent and every time I tried to check it, it worked fine. It only failed after driving about 20 minutes. It even checked ok when doing MSDs' recommended test procedure. I replaced everything trying to track the issue down and only figured it out when it failed for good...sitting in a parking lot at work. That distributor was only 1 year old, and out of 3-4 that I have and have used for the last 20 years, it's the only one that has failed on me.

I'm not a fan of breaking down and leaving my car anywhere unattended, so I've learned to always carry a spare pickup now, including a spare ignition box, along with a small wrench and allen wrench for changing the pickup. That's the only design flaw, in my opinion, because it's nearly impossible to get to the allen head on the bottom, so it requires pulling the distributor. It would be much more friendly if it was just a threaded screw, but I suppose stripped threads would then be an issue.

[Yellow Truck]

It is wired correctly - it ran for about 20 minutes and now the 6AL box passes the diagnostic (when you touch the white wire to ground it sparks) and the pickup doesn't (according to MSD we should see 500 to 700 ohms on the two outside wires on the plug and we get OL on the multimeter).

The first time I started it, it idled well enough and I decided to run it around the block and it died about 70 yards from the house. This time I recognized that the fuel pump had stopped (Holley Blue, so pretty hard not to notice). I have it wired to a fuse in the original fuse box under the dash and through an oil pressure sensor to cut off the fuel pump if I lose oil pressure. This fuse failed last year about 10 miles from home, on the side of a really busy and fast street, in the rain, with nowhere to pull off, so I had to have it towed home (a little hard on the ego). Since it was a 47 year old fuse, I didn't pay too much attention.

This time I had to walk home, get a light and pair of pliers, but I had 5 more fuses in the glove box. Took 3 more to get it around the corner and back home!

The switch I was using to bypass the oil pressure cutoff (needed to fill the carb when it had been run dry, like right then) had been on the truck for years and we just re-purposed it by re-routing the wires. Turned out it had unshielded spade connectors and they were touching some metal parts behind the dash.

I was very happy that it was something simple so fired it up and took it for a 100 yard test drive...

[Yellow Truck]

Have to ship the distributor back to MSD at my expense. Hope this doesn't keep up because the shipping costs per mile driven right now is around $1,000 (including the shipping to get the part to me in the first place).

[Barry_R]

That seems wrong...
How hard can it be to change out a pickup or module?

I wonder if I have one here to trade out...

I found one - its the "top" from an MSD 8594 that we "beheaded" for another project.  I can just mail it to you and you can scavenge the pickup to see if that fixes it.  No idea if its a good one or not, but it ohm tests similar to a new in the box 8594 when probing the connector.

[Falcon67]

I have had good luck with MSD parts for a long time.  Since not everything is "Made in the USA" (which is not a guarantee of quality but) it would not be a stretch to assume they have/had a batch of bad pickup coils.  They are basically a beefed up version of the duraspark pickup.  I have found MSD stuff to be pretty robust.  I use their pickup in my hacked distributor on the 302 tunnel ram - small AMC cap, Duraspark body and shaft, MSD pickup coil.

Case in point - wife's racer had a screw back out of the rotor and fall into the body.  After a bit it sheared two teeth off the reluctor.  We could still load it running on 6 cylinders.  Apparently didn't hurt the pickup and didn't get #1 tang because the timing is still spot on.

[turbohunter]

Paul I've used them once as I said for the fix and once for a total rebuild and the rebuild was $110 US.
If your deal meets their warranty specs then you should be in it for no money (I'm assuming here).
Shipping in the lower 48 is pretty cheap so I can't comment on your 1K figure but it sounds somehow off (IMHO).