The electronic distributor on my 383 was getting no vacuum advance, so I took it apart, cleaned it up, and put on a new vacuum pod- the pin on the end of the old one was MIA. The dizzy came to me with the engine, so I don't know anything about its history, but the pod I took off was marked 11*, and the new one is 9*.

With the new vac pod on and the dizzy on the workbench I put the vacuum pump to it, but the pickup plate wouldn't move at all. Something was binding the arm on the vac advance. The vac advance moved fine when not in the distributor though. I took the new vac advance off and compared it to the old one and found that the bends in the arms, and their lengths are not the same.

Please take a look at these photos. The 9* looks right to me but doesn't work right, The 11* (with the homemade pin) works without binding, but looks wrong to me.

What do you think is going on? Are there several different arm styles out there?

The electronic distributor on my 383 was getting no vacuum advance, so I took it apart, cleaned it up, and put on a new vacuum pod- the pin on the end of the old one was MIA. The dizzy came to me with the engine, so I don't know anything about its history, but the pod I took off was marked 11*, and the new one is 9*.

With the new vac pod on and the dizzy on the workbench I put the vacuum pump to it, but the pickup plate wouldn't move at all. Something was binding the arm on the vac advance. The vac advance moved fine when not in the distributor though. I took the new vac advance off and compared it to the old one and found that the bends in the arms, and their lengths are not the same.

Please take a look at these photos. The 9* looks right to me but doesn't work right, The 11* (with the homemade pin) works without binding, but looks wrong to me.

What do you think is going on? Are there several different arm styles out there?