Went to the Good Guy's car show and swap meet held at the Alameda county fairgrounds "Pleasanton, Ca." and picked up a used MSD StreetFire HEI distributor ($60) for my 74 Chevy C10 Cheyenne Step Side Pick-up, this past August. Thought I was making the deal of the day as it appeared to be hardly used. Turns out I picked up a 60 buck broken GM HEI distributor... I think the ignition control module is toast after installing and trouble shooting until later hours of the night...
The original distributor had issues with rust on the weighted advance and possibly the vacuum advance was shot to. Starting and performance suffered and made driving this truck rather difficult and costly. I had a spare GM HEI distributor from a deal I made on 2 doors I bought for parts and weather stripping. Turns out this saved the day and now the truck starts and runs much better. I didn't realize how bad my distributor was until I pulled and checked it out.
The replacement ignition control module from MSD is about $45 and change. I'm looking around the local part stores and speed shops to see if anyone has one in stock, which could drop the cost of shipping ($10).
I'm just a bit pissed about the guy that sold me the Street fire distributor as he assured me it was good.... what can I say... it's risky to buy distributors, alternators, fuel pumps, or starters at swap meets.
Deuce