Magnum blocks' distributor warning

[slant6billy]

I have heard the 3.9 dizzy would grenade... Well mine did in the '95 van at 100K Wednesday morning. A bunch of folks have said these 3.9s before 1999 could do that. The rotor shaft and all separated. If you can, check if you are running any magnum motor swap. I got lucky and just needed a new Distributor. A few can jam up things under the manifold. The tattletale is the sounds of clicking or rocks in the box noises.

 

[NoCar340]

I've never heard of this problem previously... any idea exactly what let fly?

 

[slant6billy]

I found a thread on this: http://mombu.com/dodge/dodge/t-92-dakota-39-distributer-gear-replacement-942631.html

That some decent discussion on it. Mine: the Distributor was noisy for years- chirping and sounding like a box of pebbles. I tried to move the shaft and had no play what so ever. At times I thought I had top end noise, but it was all the dizzy. Any van or Dakota with a 3.9 with the original dizzy will have this noise. For some reason the pickups are not known for this. My van had a new cap and rotor ( brass contact type) from August 2012. The upper shaft wore the collar and the upper bearing. The inside of the cap was trashed, the rotor destroyed, the cam sensor wafer trashed as well. Some folks had stated there were some rivets that get worn (somewhere?). Mopar action just had an article (not the April 14 issue- the one before) on the magnum dizzys and some interesting info on the 98 and newer ones. Apparently the 98 and up magnums are a bit different.