Distributor Cap: How a Motor Works

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Part of the video series: Replacing a Distributor Cap

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Setting Distributor Cap in Place

Unclipping an Old Distributor Ca...

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Summary: A distributor cap is an important part of a working motor. Learn how an engine works from a professional mechanic in this free automotive video.

Views: 1,009 | Tags: repair, engine, automotive, spark, distributor, cap, rotors, automobile, plugs, intake, hoses

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About the Expert

Mark Sullivan Mark Sullivan has been a handyman for over twenty years. He has professionally worked on several projects, including all facets of commercial, apartment, and ... read more

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by ExpertMark

Very Detailed!

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Video Transcript

Distributor Cap: How a Motor Works

Today we're going to show you how to replace the distributor cap and the rotor in your conventional internal combustion automobile engine. On this car, this is a Ford F250, its a V8 motor, it is fuel injected. Now how this motor works is, you have to have three things for the motor to run, really four. One is it takes air. The air comes in through here, goes through the air cleaner and then goes through these tubes into the throttle body. This is kind of like your carburetor. I'm going to point with this screwdriver. This is like your the air comes in through here and then goes down into the motor and is mixed with the gasoline and there is the combustion chamber in there and the gasoline is burned and it makes the car go. Well, the thing that delivers the spark to your motor is the spark comes from the coil. I'm going to point to the coil. This is the coil right here, this little black box makes a big spark of electricity and then the electricity goes through this wire, this is your coil wire, and that coil wire delivers a big spark into your distributor. And then the distributor distributes the spark out these spark plug wires to each of the spark plugs which are in the combustion chamber. So here at the end of my screwdriver, you see the spark plug connector. I'll pull that off so that you can look and see the top of the spark plug. So if you see at the end of my screwdriver, there is this white ceramic insulator. That is part of the spark plug and then this is the spark plug wire that hooks on to the spark plug and then the spark is delivered from the distributor out to the spark plug. Now many times if the car is running poorly or if it just will not start, a common problem is the distributor cap and the rotor.