MTFCA Forum

Hello guys,

Picked this up from a friend yesterday. Not labeled, and I've spent hours comparing it to others. Not sure if I'll actually run it but it's interesting to me. No rotor, distributor cap I have with it looks a lot like a early 20s Delco type. Anyone recognize it?

Loos like what was called an "Timer Elevator". Basically a standard commutator would sit on top for easy adjusting, Need to see what is on the plate where points would go. I see that it has a condenser. May be a modification of sorts

Can you take a picture from the top angle

Yep I can get a picture when I get home. Don't think it's a timer elevator, that's what I initially thought too. Only modification I can see is the modern condenser. Inside distributor has point "cam" points and provision for rotor. Also has clips to hold cap in place, and indexing point to clock cap in correct location. All looks original to the assembly.

Enhanced the original photo

Here's a couple of the top. Thanks for enhancing that picture, way better!

Very Interesting. Clean it up you might find something to help ID

Looks like a Tornado brand.

Hank

I can not tell you what brand it is but I have a couple of those distributor housings. When I bought my speedster it had one of those on it (still does). The one in my speedster had been adapted to run an old Datsun distributor head on it. I have converted the points to a pertronix unit.
The gears in those distributors are a little different. They look more like a spider gear in a rear end than they do the Bosch gears. I pick up another at a swap meet just for the housing and gears just in case anything happened to mine.
The problem with those old distributors is finding the cap and rotor, that’s probably why mine had been converted.
I have since converted a Bosch distributor housing to run a Nissan distributor head, works great.

Thanks for the input guys. I compared it to a tornado brand, similar but not the same. Better casting that's for sure than the Tornado. Yeah the gears are a little odd compared to other distributors. The cap on this one looks almost identical to a '22 Chevy cap. Going to order a rotor for one of those as well and see if it works in this one.