Okay so my car sputtered out the other day, which got me to looking around at things. Looked at the dizzy cap and there is dust in that particular corner, but none on the internals of the dizzy. Do the contacts look good also?

Now this isn't red dust, I do live on a gravel filled street, but don't get how dust could get in the cap like that.

 

I'd still suspect the bearings in the dizzy. Corrosion can be different in different environments.

Or those bearings are brass layered instead of copper.... Copper is getting expensive now a days.

 

What does the rotor look like?

 

Remove the distributor and spin the rotor feeling for crunch and listening for the same.

 

Is the cap cracked or the cap seal bad, allowing dirt to get inside?

 

Cap nor cap seal is broken. This is what i don't get.


Rotor looks good I could post a pic of that too, but no burnt contacts or anything.

I'll do what Bentley said when I go and replace the o ring

 

Not sure how dirt/dust enter the distributor without a cap crack or bad seal.

 

All the dust/crap caked up around the edge leads me to believe the seal is bad.

 

I suspect if you give the dust some time it will rust to a nice red color, it's only beginning so is yellow and some orange hue going on in there being you caught it right away.

 

Post a picture of the rotor.

 

When certain electronics components fail, they can start to throw off dust just that color. Not saying that's definitely what it is, but electronics dust looks like that. If the car isn't running, then it's time for OP to go through the usual gamut of distributor tests.

 

Car is in a running condition. It just sputtered on the highway lost power but still idled fine I almost think a wire popped off. I just started making sure all connections were tight and it's gone.

I'll post a pic of the rotor when I get off work

 

...and also the distributor with the dust cover removed to see the distributor internals.