Hi guys

..while opening the dist cap and seeing inside, i saw some very STRANGER:
the arm of the dist vacuum advance can was WELTED, so i suspect it wouldn't be working since it was put on the engine......

The question is:

what would happend it is welded ? as far i know, the advance applies when you push the gas pedal to get more advance during the accelerations.....

my engine is a 307 standard, with no special modifications. I ran the car and didn't experience any problems .....

I don't know why the dist was welded in the vacuum, but i know it wouldn't be in that way,it would be free so it can advance the spark properly ....

Should i un-weld and leave it free ?? i suspect someone welded it to avoid the free moving of the plate of the dist (where the contact points are attached).

Without vaccuum advance you will loose some mpg. It works the opposite of what you think, only during high vaccuum. You should unweld it. Also make sure your centrifical advance works.

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It was welded to eliminate any vacuum advance while still holding the arm in place so the distributor can't rotate the pickup on its own. Very common thing done on cars that see mostly track time- easier to control total timing without the vacuum advance- such an engine would typically only see idle and WOT- where the vacuum advance would be minimal and nonexistent, respectively. Definetly not what you want for mainly street driving.

Take the vacuum canister assb. out and buy an adjustable Crane unit or such- "de-welding" it isn't likely worth the hassle and effort- especially if it turns out the diaphragm inside is shot- $30.00 gets you a fully adjustable unit you can tune to your engine's particular requirements.