I am going to replace my plugs and plug wires soon and was wondering if I should replace the distributor cap in the process. If so, is there a specific brand I need to get or will whatever Autozone carries work fine. And, I just replaced the fuel filter over the weekend and what a difference that made!! The the gas that poured out of the old filter was as dark as oil. I am convinced that car makers put certain parts, like the fuel filter on the discovery, in ridiculous places so you will get frustrated with doing it yourself and take it to a shop. But I called up a friend, bought him a six pack and got the job done.

 

The general consensus is that for the Distributor rotor and Distributor cap you really need to use Rover OEM parts. Others just won't hold up very well.

 

Thanks Phototone. Do you think I need to even mess with replacing the distributor cap?

 

"DITTO", and be very carefull when removing the rotor, you can cause interbal danage to the older Rover rotor's if you yank on them.
Buy a new Rover cap and rotor to go along with your plug wires.
By the way, what brand of plug wires are you going to install? I would suggest if you haven't installed any yet that you order and install only a set of 8 mm Magnacor wires, Rovers are real hard on cheap wires.

 

ThanksMike. I'm going to order the Magnecor wires from Tony and I'm going to use bosch platinum 4 plugs. This may be a stupid question, but what is the rotor? I have never changed plugs, plug wires or distributor cap on a vehicle before so I'm a real newb here. I checked on roverparts.com and they had an oem distributor cap but only 1 rotor for a mallory distributor.

 

The rotor is the part in the cap that makes contact to the plugs it looks like a T when you pull the cap you will see it.

Do change it.

 

When you order the wires from Tony, tell him to include a new cap and rotor.

 

I'll be sure and throw the cap and rotor in with the order. Are the cap and rotor difficult to change out?

 

No.
Follow your plug wires from the spark plugs back towards the engine, you will see a round thing with the wires sticking out of it. There will be screws that hold it on, undue the screws and it will come off. The rotor will be inside, unscrew it and take it off. Putting the new on is reverse of removal.
MAKE SURE IT ALL GOES BACK THE WAY IT CAME OFF! If you put something back wrong you are hosed. It will not run. Most cap and rotors are shaped/marked so that they can only go on one way.
The best thing to do is to do one thing at a time. Replace all the spark plugs, then all the wires, one at a time, and then the cap and rotor. If you put the wrong wire on the wrong plug you will have problems. Same thing if you put the plug wire on the wrong post on the cap.
Hope this helps.

 

Thanks a lot Spike. I've replaced plugs and wires before but never the cap or rotor. I'll let ya'll know how it goes when I get it finished.