I feel like a dork asking this, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to do fine adjustments on the Hitachi distributor. I have one of the four-sharp-teeth matchbox style distributors (and another electronic one that's quite different) and my current one is honestly adjusted pretty well. I was expecting there to be some sort of pinch bolt on the dizzy shaft so I could loosen that and rotate the body, but I can't find it. It's possible that it's buried in too much oil crud to see.
I've gone through the ignition timing part of the wiki and it has lots of detail, but, not "loosen this bolt on the bottom" that I could find.
Thanks for any advice

Yup

Theres a bolt

http://datsun1200.com/modules/mediawi ... dex.php?title=Distributor

good point. we dont have a great photo

early A12



A14/A15/A12A

The pinch bolt is used by Austin A-series, but Datsun A-series uses a bolt that faces up

Yeah, loosen a little bit, just enough so the distributor can be rotated with a bit of force, but not so loose that it moves freely

There are two bolts, the one on the bottom and the one that goes into the block. The block bolt is the one for fine adjustment. The bottom one (on the bottom of the distributor) is the coarse adjustment and only used during assembly

Once you clean off the grease and grime you'll see this plate


The Retard/Advance marks illustrate that the rotation just a little bit is all it needs, 2 degrees is like one millimeter

A12 and A14 type timing adjuster plates, the adjustment bolt goes into the block. It also serves as the hold-down bolt

Attach file:

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  early A12 distributor adjustment bolt.jpg (101.50 KB)


  A14 distributor adjustment bolt underneath here.jpg (144.55 KB)

Thank you all! I will go excavate the grime on the bottom of the distributor and learn how to do this.