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Tear Down

Tear Down Begins

Every great journey begins with a first step. The tear down begins as we start the journey of its restoration to factory original condition.

In the case of this Mustang, the tear down I had already determined one of the previous owners had installed a Hays Stinger ignition (see “Sins of our Youth”). This meant I would not only need to remove the ignition box, but inside the distributor was a “mopar-like” magnetic pickup unit and a trick reluctor that was a press-fit onto the autolite shaft cam. Despite its performance gains, these items simply could not remain.

I carefully removed the coil wire and then the coil. To my shock, it turned out the coil was still the original factory unit. That’s right, despite installing several go-fast items, including what was at that time a state of the art ignition system, they had left the factory coil. You could still barely see the remnants of the original factory ink stamp.

Original factory coil. You can barely see the remnants of the factory ink stamp.
Factory coils had a unique yellow cap. Reproductions won’t match this color exactly.

The coil was carefully cleaned and restored by All Classic Motors to like new condition. This included restamping it with the factory markings. It was then set aside to be reinstalled later.

The original coil and coil retainer bracket were cleaned and restored to like new.
Here you can see that unique yellow top, now fully cleaned.

With the coil out of the way, I removed the distributor cap and spark plug wires then proceeded to remove the distributor. Here you can see the magnetic pickup unit and reluctor that were press-fit onto the autolite shaft cam.

Here you can see the various internal components of the Hays Stinger ignition.

With the distributor out of the car, it was easy to see the part number, and date stamp, 9E2, indicating this too was the original factory unit produced on May 2, 1969.

The date code, 9E2, means May 2, 1969 which confirms this is the original Autolite distributor that came with the car when new.

Overall it was in fairly good shape and would restore nicely. Knowing the Hays Stinger ignition is highly sought after by people building a period correct hot rod I carefully removed and stored all of the internal components for future use.

Here is a picture showing all the Hays components now pulled from the car.

The distributor was then completely stripped and rebuilt. It was not only returned to a new factory original appearance, but also made to perform like new.

Here you can see the distributor now fully restored including the correct Autolite coil tension wire.
Notice the factory correct white cap on the coil tension wire.
Gone are the Hays components and in their place are the correct factory plates, points and condensor.
Close up of the coil tension wire showing the embossed ‘Autolite’.

While I was at it, I decided now would be a good time to order a reproduction Autolite distributor cap from National Parts Depot and a set of plug wires with the proper factory markings and date code from Marti Auto Works.

Notice one plug wire has an orange colored boot. This was done intentionally because during production two plug wires were crossed as installed on the engine. To avoid confusion during assembly, the workers were instructed to make sure the orange boot was put on the number 6 spark plug.

Reproduction Autolite spark plug wires with the correct factory markings and date code.
Reproduction Autolite distributor cap.

Next Step: Removing Lights