Re: Exploding Distributor Cap... (fwd)

[brettd@tiac.net (Brett Dikeman)]

>> Message posted for my bro...
>>
>> Here's a good one for everyone...
>>
>> My younger bro owns a Titan Red metalic '86 5KCStq and just recently had
>> his distributor cap explode apart on him....?  He lives at 7800 feet in
>>Tahoe,
>> daily driver,  regular guy, minimal maintenance dude. (Never changed it I
>> bet...)
>> He said that it..."looked as if it got burned and blew apart ... scattering
>> brick red plastic everywhere, with a blackend look"  I told him that the
>> Audi gods had let a big "dist cap fart..." and that he needed to spend
>>some $$$.
>> A new cap fixed that one.

I believe the distributor cap and distributor are ceramic, not plastic-it
might be plastic-coated ceramic though...If it is ceramic, this would
explain why he though it exploded.  I bet that if you look at the pieces of
the cap and rotor, you'll see something on the interior of the cap that
looks like a big scrape of some kind.  Sounds like the rotor broke or
caught something and slammed it into the cap, shattering the cap.

Oh-one thing-why do they always tell you to cover over the distributor cap
with plastic if you're going to clean up the engine with water or some kind
of degreaser? Is it to keep water out of the inside so that the rotor's
contacts don't get messed up?

Brett