Which distributor do I need? 528i
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2023 3:15 pm
Hi all,
I have a 1976 520 with a 78-80-ish 528i motor and running gear in it. The car has been off the road since 1994 and I'm the fourth or fifth owner since then. The motor is rebuilt, and looks wonderful, but I've struggled a lot with sorting out little issues to get it running properly. In the end I got a guy who has a lot of experience with M30s to work on it. He had it running, but when trying to set the timing with the distributor, the car would spit the distributor out of the block and stop, at which point he sent the car back to me and told me to fix it, then he would do the timing. I found out that one of the springs way down in the guts of the distributor had become dislodged and would jam it occasionally. I put the spring back, despite knowing it might have sustained some damage, because I could not find replacement parts. However, after putting it back together, the car now only runs on 3 cylinders. All plug wires were checked with the timing light and three of them are not getting spark.
My plan is to buy a replacement distributor, but the numbers stamped on the housing have me confused. Do they make a difference? My current one is a 0237302013, which seems very uncommon. Can I buy any Bosch PGFUD6, or are there internal differences?
Any other tips on parts to replace or ways to troubleshoot this?
Cheers,
Kjetil
I have a 1976 520 with a 78-80-ish 528i motor and running gear in it. The car has been off the road since 1994 and I'm the fourth or fifth owner since then. The motor is rebuilt, and looks wonderful, but I've struggled a lot with sorting out little issues to get it running properly. In the end I got a guy who has a lot of experience with M30s to work on it. He had it running, but when trying to set the timing with the distributor, the car would spit the distributor out of the block and stop, at which point he sent the car back to me and told me to fix it, then he would do the timing. I found out that one of the springs way down in the guts of the distributor had become dislodged and would jam it occasionally. I put the spring back, despite knowing it might have sustained some damage, because I could not find replacement parts. However, after putting it back together, the car now only runs on 3 cylinders. All plug wires were checked with the timing light and three of them are not getting spark.
My plan is to buy a replacement distributor, but the numbers stamped on the housing have me confused. Do they make a difference? My current one is a 0237302013, which seems very uncommon. Can I buy any Bosch PGFUD6, or are there internal differences?
Any other tips on parts to replace or ways to troubleshoot this?
Cheers,
Kjetil