I pulled the distributor off today after religiously marking the position in relation to the engine using a china marker. I made both a line on the top and I traced around the circle washer.

1. Oil was in the cap again. This thing is done for.
2. Off of the engine, the shaft rotates with difficulty. When I attempt to turn it it almost feels as if gravel is inside the bearings.
3. I took a look at the little metal piece that interfaces with the camshaft and it jiggles around. I'm not sure if this is normal.

I cleaned everything up and put it back on, this time adding a third distributor bolt because it was missing before. I made sure the marks aligned so that it was exactly as it was before. Turned the car on and now it's even worse! I can hear some kind of ticking under the hood that sounds like a bird chirping and it happens rhythmically. At idle the whole car vibrates hard. I can feel it at my feet, my back, everywhere. The vibration is random. I can feel it for a while then it would stop and start, stop and start randomly. It used to vibrate before but not this bad to where I can feel it at my feet and my body.

Also now when I'm accelerating the engine makes a whine like a jet engine from a plane, it also happens when I'm slowing down.

Here are my possibilities for why this is happening:
1. Tightened the dizzy down too hard.
2. Tightened the cap down too hard.
3. The cap and rotor are done for. I know they're worn but they were worn before and it didn't sound or feel like this. I tried cleaning the oil inside of it out using brake cleaner but some oil was left inside of the walls of the cap.
4. It's out of time.
5. The shaft is so worn that it's misfiring now.

What I need to know is if it's safe to drive. What if the ticking is something to do with the valves due to mistiming? Couldn't that ruin the valves? Or am I just stupid and it has nothing to do with valves?

This may seem like a lot but I have a plan to deal with the inevitable which is the failing distributor shaft. Maybe this plan will fix the engine issues too. I have a spare distributor housing from a 1995 Accord that to my knowledge is not leaking oil. The shaft on it rotates much better than this one. I have no idea what a good distributor shaft should feel like when it spins but the 1995 dizzy shaft does not spin freely. When you're turning it by hand you'll feel bumps of resistance as it spins. Is this normal? If this is normal I can just swap the internals and use the 1995 Accord dizzy housing.

There's just a couple of catches:
1. The dizzy housing was removed from the 1995 because the 1995 would stall out in traffic with all dash lights and CEL on. It would start up later. We always thought it was the igniter. The housing would still be good in that case.
2. One of the wires in it was chaffed by the rotor and exposed open. I think this may also have caused the stalling. So I need to be able to swap the wires inside. Is it possible to replace the wires too?
3. Lastly, I'm not sure they even use the same type of distributor but searching has led me to believe they do since I see people selling the same dizzy for the 1993 and 1995 LX.

 

It sounds like your distributor is done.

The distributor normally feels like it has bumps when you try to turn it. Those sensors inside are magnets and the propellers spin past the magnets to generate a signal. There will be some resistance when spinning by hand.

I don't know if the 95 distributor will work. Check that the electrical connections are the same between the two distributors. It can't hurt to remove the 93 distributor and see if the 95 one will bolt on to the cylinder head. Replacing the wires may be possible. Search T0gd3V9QLhw on YouTube for a good video on how this was done on an integra.

 

I took a look at the 1995 distributor and it looks good but the only problem I see is how I'm going to handle the sensor wires. On the 95 dizzy the sensor wires are all gone to hell. They're literally ripping apart for some reason. I can't use these. And since I can't unplug them from the sensors I need to take the sensors out too.

I can unscrew the top sensor but the two underneath are impossible to get to. They're screwed in but I can't take the top plate off to access them because the top plate is also screwed in, on it's underside! I don't know how I'm supposed to reach screws that are UNDER the plate.

I'm starting to wish I had just snagged that Richporter distributor I saw on ebay for $77.00.

 

Lol your always taking something off and findin something broke..

Sounds like bearing noise to me. As for the rough idle, you probably wiggled something the wrong way on a already crapped out distributor and now it is not operating at optimum.

New dizzy son!

 

This is true, it's the story of my life.

At this point I've accepted that I'm basically looking at buying a whole new distributor. So new dizzy son!

 

Sorry to double post but what do you guys think about a rebuilt/remanufactured distributor pulled from a car that had roughly 80000 miles on it? It's significantly cheaper but I'm wondering how a distributor is "rebuilt" and whether the quality would be there.

 

Actually I decided not to buy a new dizzy. This is because I managed to take the whole spare distributor apart and realized how easy it was. I can just do this to the 1993 dizzy and replace the leaking oil seal. The shaft from the 1995 dizzy is sound and in great shape. The bearing is in great shape, no rust and moves freely once it's pulled out of the housing with the magnetic sensors in it.

So I ordered the internal oil seal (same OE NOK seal) and I'm going to remove the old seal and transplant just the 1995 dizzy shaft into the dizzy and it shouldn't leak anymore oil. I think I just saved myself the price of a new dizzy.

My only problem now is how to get the old oil seal out. When it gets hard it almost fuses to the dizzy housing and it's like impossible to remove. Is there some way to soften this stuff up? It's rubber but it's fused to the metal.