Could you tell if there was any excessive bushing wear on the distributor when you had it out? That will cause more spark scatter than the end play in the distributor shaft.
I was sort of amazed at the amount of end play my distributor had in it the first time I took it out. I added washers to get the end play down to something in the neighborhood of about 0.015"

 

the distributor had good bushings to and bottom. it has a pertronix in it and i did notice it did not have the ring around the points cam. i looked on the pertronix site and they shoe them with the rings, so i asked pertronix if this model i sent them info on came with the ring. that ring has magnets in ot to trigger the unit. so if the unit is triggering from the points cam that may be giving him fits as well.

he told me last night it had no change. so i told him to put the points back into the distributor and start from scratch with the ignition system and go from there. all he can do is get a new distributor and carb if he still has the issue it is internal to the engine and i'm not going down that road. thanks. bp.

 

Surprised that without the ring, it's triggering the spark at all.

 

yes i am also. i asked pertronix about that. now to get a reply. i will let you know what they tell me. it could be that without that ring the spark is not good enough when he is in high gear and hammers it that then may blow out the plug. that is what is is crying about he gets in high gear and going 25 mph which is 1500 rpms and hammers it the extra large charge is going into the cylinders and it could be the pertronix without the ring is not firing the plug good enough. maybe someone will have an answer for that. but with all the other problems i'm hammering out one at a time for him if the missing ring is the root cause then he should have all the other potential issues fixed.
thanks bp.

 

ok an update for weeks ago. i did the distributor it had a lot of issues. still the same. did the hb and still the same. he was changing q-jet parts still the same. so today he was over and complaining about the tach cable he broke and then showed me the broken fan shroud. so i checked the hb and the 3 bolts were there and tight but the center bolt i found lose. that sometimes happens after an hb change but for s &g we put it up on my lift and i found a busted mount on the drivers side. now we talked about that at the beginning and i told you that he assured me they were good. well one was broken. now i can't say it just did not break but if i were a betting man i would have to say it was like that all this time. and the keepers on the mount that keep the engine down must have been hitting and the power strokes from the engine were getting transmitted to the frame and because the steering box is setting there, that then transmitted that vibration up to the steering wheel.

now i can't say that is the problem but like some said and i have experienced metal to metal anywhere along the drive line will put vibration into something on the car. and i betting most of you will agree.

i then double checked the exhaust and it was not hitting anywhere. and the engine was not hitting anywhere.

but i had a problem and let me tell you and then you tell me how to do it and where i messed up?

i had to take the mount off correct? so i put a 2x6 under the hb to hold the engine as i lowered the hoist some. i have done this before only put the support under the oil pan. well i could not get the engine off the damn mount. i even pulled the bolt on the right side so the engine had no reason not to lift off the mounts. i had the 3 bolts out of the engine side as well on the left mount. finally i had to pry up under the power steering mount to get the damn engine up and off that mount. so what did i do wrong here? the lift came down and the front of the car was lifting off the lift. i even put the prop under the power steering mount thinking i needed to just get the weight off that side. did not help. i have done this like i said before with other v8 and v6 engines and they just lifted up off the mount. not this one. i worked for a couple of hours messing around until i was able to pry up the power steering bracket and put a wedge in there to home the engine up enough to maneuver that moune out and back in. then i could not get the front bolt back in the mount he is going to another garage and see if they can do it. i just did not have the tool for it. thanks bp.

 

Would a tapered alignment punch have helped? Would have been interesting to see what would have happened if you were trying to pull the engine out with a crane.

 

thanks. no there was no room for that type of tool without making one. but i could see the threads wer aligned i just could not get my hands fingers or any other tool in there. it took an hour just to get the bolt out i had to use a ratcheting wrench and could only go one click at a time. the mount and the power steering bracket were in the way. i tried the same install procedure but could not get pressure to push the bolt in far enough. then i tried a pry bar but that put to much stuff in the way. what i needed was a swiveling socket by itself. but i don't have that set of tools. i have swivels but not the complete unit just components.

was kind of hoping to get more comments on engine removal here but must be most do not remove there engines but leave that to some other poor sap. thanks bp.