No Power When In Gear!

This is the title of a thread on another forum I frequent that is for technical and mechanical advice for vintage Chevrolets.

Someone wrote in the thread with the aforementioned title complaining that their 54 Chevy had a sudden loss of power.... and it turned out the distributor had 'somehow' gotten turned, retarding the ignition timing. Turning the damn thing back solved the problem.

Nostalgia set in and my reply began... sharing it here for lulz:

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I'm going to tell you right now and I'm going to tell you once, LUBRICATE THE BLOODY DISTRIBUTOR!!!

And now, a story.

Years ago I lived with a girl from Riverside. Once a month we'd drive down Hwy 395 from Gardnerville here to the Los Angeles area to visit her family and we would take my '54 sedan.... normally we'd leave after she got off from work about 5:30 and arrive there 2-3 in the morning.

One time while driving through the deserted, undulous area between Kramer Junction and the Grapevine the car went BUUHHHHHHHHHH............ and lost a ton of power with loads of black smoke coming out the back. The power, in fact, was nearly completely gone. It would run in neutral but once in drive would bog so bad you'd have to run the throttle wide open to keep it going; plumes of black smoke coming out the back.

Didn't take a rocket scientist (or a naive young man) to realize that the plugs would foul in short order.... so I pulled off the side of the two lane road to investigate. Shortly thereafter a firetruck pulled off and a couple guys got out to try and help; mostly a bust honestly as none of them were really mechanics.

What they did do, however, was drive right behind me as I attempted to continue my trek to someplace I could get help.

Feeling the car lose more and more power with every hill the two of us overcame I finally gave up and pulled off. I told the fire crew to see if they could make some contact in the next town to let them know we were out here, which they gladly obliged and I watched them continue on. They came through every few hours so it was okay just in case I was still stuck there.

Checking the carb as well over as I could it didn't seem to be having any trouble so I loosened the clamp on the distributor and gave it a turn to advance it as a last resort. BAM! Power was back and the engine came to a rolling idle.

WTF? I thought..... and I could see where the distributor had turned so far and so hard the grease cup on the side of it scarred and dented the lifter cover.

Stupid me at the time, "Hmm, must have been loose!" I was just happy the car was okay as I continued the trek to Riverside, putted around there a couple of days and made the journey back.

Everything was fine until I got right to a point somewhere between Lone Pine and Independence.

BUUUHHHHHHHHH..............again, as the car rolled to a dead stop on the side of the highway.

"Hmm.... no problem probably just a loosened clamp or wire of something.

After about 30 minutes of diagnosis I found I had no spark. Someone working for Caltrans stopped to help me out; he goes, "Get inside, I'm going to take the distributor cap off, you turn the motor over."

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ........... the sound of the starter cranking was less the sound of pistons trying to push compression we're all so familiar with and more of an unnerving and heart dropping steady hum.

Out came the distributor. It was VERY hard to turn and the shaft was actually twisted.... Oh dear.

Long story short, a friend came about 200 some odd miles down from Gardnerville with a new distributor, by that time I'd determined that the fiber gear on the end of the camshaft had stripped out and the engine was DONE.... thus ensuing a 200-some-odd mile ROPE TOW home through the mountains; in the winter, one time losing control and nearly going over the edge of the mountain on an icy pass. To this day my front swaybar is bent from the Jeep that was towing me slipping out of control on black ice as I steered one way and he steered another, causing the tow rope to snap tight (yet amazingly not break) at nearly neck breaking force but preventing him from going over the edge. I remember seeing the white Jeep suddenly go sideways and I looked over at my girlfriend Tybie and calmly said "Hold on." I reached over to hold her back to the seat when the big BANG occurred nearly knocking us silly.

Did I mention it was winter? Yes, winter in a drafty car without a heater at 2am. FREEZING.

.....

If only I'd lubricated that distributor I'd have prevented ALL of that. Turns out the white grease in the grease cup on the side of the distributor was as antique as the car was and was all hard and sure wasn't lubricating ANYTHING.

So check this before your distributor seizes up like mine did please.

And of course, on the other hand you might have just had a loose clamp!