In a further attempt to locate the problems with my 164, I

took the top of the distributor off and looked in. There is

a braided wire that goes from the capacitor to the breaker

plate (I'm not sure what its name is -- the thing that has

the points on it that's attached to the advance mechanism).

This braided wire is copper and soldered on both ends. The

copper part of the wire is completely broken. There is a silver

wire within the braided wire that is still intact, but it is

of very thin gauge.

Can I just pull out the distributor, solder in a new wire

in place of that one (just a normal wire, nothing special) and

expect things to work when I put this back together? I assume

I should mark where the rotor is pointed and not turn over the

motor while I've got the distributor out; anything else?

Would this explain intermitant loss of power and occasional

backfiring?

chris