Electronic ignition or standard points style distributor?

I'm getting ready to purchase an engine compartment harness for my 70 Duster (340 motor/auto) and I'm still not sure if I should run the electronic ignition or standard points style distributor. Thoughts?

I hate change but I went away from points.I ran a Mallory dula point till about 15 years ago.You can run the points dist with Petronix and look almost stock.Not a big deal to go with factory dist and box unless its a 100 point resto.Rocky

If you are going to drive the car . . . I would go with the electronic ignition harness. I did that with my 70 Sport Satellite . . .although I did lengthen the ignition harness, so I could mount the control box under the battery. That way you don't see it . . .

You posing the Q tells me originality ain't an issue. Was the '70 originally a points app? (I'm assuming yes per the Q). I'd likely go electronic with a regular 70's electronic dist and a good American made ECU (not an orange box) and an E coil. An HEI can mount under the dist with the tailor made ($$$) alum plate or (easily) make your own. Use some Radio Shack heat sink paste with it. this would keep the point based firewall uncluttered with the addition of an ECU. For the points app (or going with Pertronix its needed) AZ has rebuilt dists for cheap. The P system needs minimal bushing play & has its own caveats, nothing too serious, IE iirc the P 1 cannot use solid core plug wires & I'd get the P II if I was going that route

Solid core plug wires belong on antique tractors. If they can or cannot be used is no issue as they are not as good as the mag core wires.

I'd say other than that Blazin' Bob is on the right track. The electronic ignition is hands down the way to go unless you are restoring. The later model electronic distributor with the Delco HEI is about as simple as you can get. I'd suggest a solid coil like the one used with the Ford TFI ignition. They are good, can be mounted in any orientation and can be had really cheap. As this is stockish stuff you can get replacements if the need arises.

The other point is to customize your ignition advance curve. There are real gains to be made there. They mostly come in the midrange, but that's where you drive anyway.

R.

I wanted to stay more original for the Duster. However, I have been receiving some feedback about mounting an electronic ignition under the battery tray. I'm planning to work with Bill Evans on customizing the harness, if I go the electronic ignition route under the battery tray. However, if those with the stock setup state there are no issues, then I will just order the stock harness setup with no wire harness takeout going down under the battery tray.

Converting to the Mopar standard electronic ignition has been standard operating procedure since 1973, when it first came out (actually was an option in 1972 on some models), for me. I felt no need to hide the ECU. I used that until the electronic fuel injection became a viable option, about 10 years ago. Gene

I gotta say like most all other Mopar guys, I've followed the Mopar tech advice and installed electronic conversions (Mopar Performance, MSD, Accel, and Mallory) on my cars. I still own the ones with Mopar Performance(2 cars), MSD, and Mallory. The Mopar Performance Orange box on my Roadrunner has left me stranded twice in 20 years! Now, I keep one in the trunk of the car; not a low-cost spare to keep on hand. The others don't get driven enough to see a fail rate. These cars are always in a climate controlled garage when not being driven, for record purposes.

Just over 4 years ago, I dragged a non-op 63 Fury home from the Lake LA/high desert. The contacts on the points were gone. As in GONE! There was nothing left other than the point body assembly on either side, so those got replaced. Other than a set of points and points only, I'm running the same plugs, wires, cap, rotor, coil, and condenser from the day I dragged it home. It runs great! Since getting it road worthy again in late 2013, I've put over 5000 miles on it. I left this car this way just to see how much hype might be behind the whole electronic ignition movement. Is a point ignition really THAT unreliable? Time and driving will continue to tell. I've not touched anything under that distributor cap since I installed those points and got the thing running. I haven't even put the timing light on it. I have revived friend's cars with point ignitions and no spark simply by dragging 600 grit sandpaper between the contacts and reinstalling the cap. They are still running on those points today.

I know, I know. I'm weird and against the masses here. This is just information to consider. I'm not saying put in a point ignition and I'm certainly NOT putting the point ignitions back in my other cars. But, I'm going to leave this one alone and keep running it until I see/feel a degradation in performance that warrants a look-see into a potential ignition problem. Until then, I've got that extra set of points I paid $2.90 for, and a 3/16" blade screwdriver, in the glovebox just in case.

Oh yeah. One more thing. My 63 Fury More Door Hardtop sits outside. Year round. In the rain. It has never failed to start. It rained like 5 inches in the last 3 days here. The car starts and runs.

Wheaton, you are congratulated for going against the masses!

I have converted all my cars back to points. I have been stranded too many times by failed electronic ignition parts. Points just work. Buy GOOD points, make sure everything is right in the distributor
and drive on! Just replace them before they are gone, like on that car you drug home. They probably drove it until it quit running. That will take many miles, like 25,000!

Do the HEI conversion. My '67 Coronet had an orange box ignition and it started okay when it was cold but would not start when it was warm. I had low voltage to the coil when hot and also a fuel boiling/flooding issue. I swapped over to an HEI and E coil and no more hot starting issues. I've since resolved the fuel boiling issue after the conversion and it's even better. Cold starting is a lot better as well. The designed2drive HEI module mount attaches it under the distributor, very clean look, and it's all of $25, hardly $$$ and well worth it. You don't need the Mopar ECU either or ballast resistor and can use a stock Mopar electronic ignition distributor. The total conversion was around $100 all in.

I agree there's nothing wrong with points. To do a comparison , I was drag racing a pretty stock 440 years ago with a Mallory Double Life dual point distributor. It was so old it was really hard to find points/rotor for it. My buddy talked me into buying a MSD 6-AL box and a MSD billet distributor, not that my engine was running bad, actually it ran fine. So I spent the money and the results were not even noticeable , not even a hundredth of a second difference in ET.. So , in my case I wasted money going to electronics with that engine. Now that being said , now with more cubes, more compression, more RPM's and of course horse power I think the electronics probably work better.

I have a points dist & a new set of points just collecting dust. sometime I'm gonna try it & set the gap at .010" for the longest dwell (.008" if it will start/run) & see how it acts. small gap=longest dwell (saturation time/most power)=shortest life (contacts are together for longer time to arc/burn/wear out): best for performance. All of that inversely proportional. For Grandmas' DD, widest gap (at least .017" for the longest life). EDIT IIRC the dwell on electronic ign (MP) is 42 (dist) deg ?? 45 is an eighth of a (dist) turn so that or a micro second less would be the max possible (dwell time). MORE EDIT for a serious points afficionado get a copy of the Jacobs' ign bible. 3/4 of that thing is devoted to points!

Well, it's great to know I'm not the 'Lone Weirdo' and I have good company!

I promise I will post when/if this ignition needs any maintenance or adjustment. Hopefully, I'll be able to find this string when it happens.

My Cuda still runs points

The only thing wrong with points is the slant six, real PITA to adjust them then.

Mopar electronic ign for over 20 years, and 20,000 miles...

No issues...



(Leaning tower of power, I used to pull the distributor to set the points...)

Yeah, I do that too, but it's a PITA anyway.

Nothing wrong with a good ole points distributor, nothing at all. Its all we had back then, and our cars ran fine. Whats wrong with pulling a little maintenance now & then & wrenching on your car from time to time, or changing a set of points,(big deal). That's part of the fun of owning one of these old muscle cars. I suppose the next thing some of you guys will want is a oil you never have to change. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to persuade the OP one way or another into points or electronic, its his car & his choice. I just don't see what all the hype is over changing to electronic ignition. I love a points distributor.

I've been running the MP electronic ignition kit for close to 20 years, car ran great, found an original '71 3438577 Prestolite cast iron dual point distributor years ago for my car, getting ready to restore that to OE with nos parts including nos solenoid - should be just fine for what I use the car for - just throw a few more spare parts in the trunk for emergencies should the need arise - that's hot rodding!

I did time with a lot of point distributors. The old factory dual point units were good. Some of the single point setups could be dialed in very well.

The reality is, the dwell on a set of points changes constantly. Higher RPM make it worse, and point bounce also comes into play. The point rubbing block wears down, and changes the dwell (reduces dwell angle or the degrees the points are open) as well. As the dwell angle reduces, the timing retards. The points also become pitted and give inconsistent dwell resulting in inconsistent spark timing. The problem is, with a point dist, the change is usually carried out over several months and is often unnoticeable by the driver.

The two current issues with a points dist are:
1) The points dist are aging or of are new questionable quality. Most have inconsistent cam lobe high point locations. Old dist find the lobes wore off, often at varying degrees per specific cam lobe, and new ones may never have been correct in the beginning. If the cam lobes are not consistent in the degrees of separation, the cylinders are not consistent in the degrees of timing each cylinder is firing. You probably won't feel a couple degrees of difference in cylinder timing, but it can show up in the power curve. The issue is, with a point dist, the thing that determines cylinder firing is a wear part.
2) Points availability isn't was it was in the heyday of points distributors. Back then, high quality points were available from several sources. Today the number of companies actually making points is pretty limited, and the quality is questionable.

Most of the short comings of dealing with points can be corrected with with a watchful eye and continual tinkering using the highest quality parts available today, if that is how you want to spend your time with your Mopar. I prefer to drive mine, so its electronic ignition for me. Gene

If its a factory / stock /showroom / showcar, go with the stock ignition, if its a car you drive and may not be 100% stock, then run electronic ignition. I like the mallory unilite and the msd pro billets, but there are less espensive, and easier to install units out there that look more like stock, like the pertronics, msd rtr, etc..

I like the rev limiter options on the electronic ignitions..

I agree. I don't have any more points distributors but I remember one thing. When you were out on the road and the ignition quit, you could clean the points with a matchbook. If the condenser shorted, you could just remove it. In both cases you at least made it home. Oh, the good old days.

AAAHHHHH the good old days...horsesh!t. Hindsight through rose colored glasses.

As early as 1963, racers were turning to electronics to make the points more reliable.

Yeah, setting the points on a Mopar smallblock was a real joy, digging around in the back of the engine compartment of those physically large cars and trucks. At least the GM cars had points adjustable from the outside with a hex driver. But not the Chrysler products. And trying to tighten a screw while keeping the adjustment correct? It's a good thing the points were pretty forgiving on setting.

As poorboy said so well, there were a lot of things that could go wrong with points. I had two different cars fail on me because the upper bushing in the distributor was so worn that it would let the points stay closed most of the time. And that's not including the points themselves, which could fail in a few interesting ways.

But not all was bad...the stock points served as a rev limiter, floating at about 5500 rpm.
If valve float didn't get you, point float would. So you bought a set of Accel high spring tension points and now either the rubbing block or the distributor cam would wear. And in an attempt to gain an extra few degrees of dwell, racers used dual point setups. Now instead of one set of points to adjust, you had two all squished together into the same size distributor housing. When's the last time you even thought about dwell?

When I bought my Direct Connection breakerless ignition kit in 1984 it made my truck feel like it had just been tuned, and it did it every day. That system worked flawlessly until about 10 years ago when I replaced the orange box with an MSD6, and that $40 used box has worked ever since. I left the wiring and the orange box in place so it could be a backup, but I took it off the firewall this year, never used. In about half a million miles driven with electronic ignition I have had one failure, a module in my Suburban.

So trot out those old warhorse worries about dependability and ease of use, but just watch out for the excrement they leave behind!

R.

I agree, I still have points in three of my cars and the only problem I've had in the last twelve years was a failed condenser in my 1971 Chrysler. I put about 1000 to 1500 miles on each car a year have not had to touch the points in my Newport or Charger in the last nine years and I haven't even changed the points in my slant six Barracude yet that I bought eight years ago. I have cars with electronic ignition also, have nothing against electronic ignition but I see no reason to update the point cars. If I was driving them 15000 miles a year then electronic might be my choice for routine maintenance reasons.

Yup points are going in my 68 R/R 440 project. Was pulling a hill in my 70 Charger some where in between Reno and Vegas many moons ago and it started to loose power. Pulled over and found the points closed up. Short work with a Swiss army knife and a matchbook cover and back on the road. I did put a MP electronic in later but never felt any gains or losses in performance. May do the same with the R/R later on. Can you still get that from MP any more??

This. A few years back Mallory and Accel were still making points for Mopar distributors (I bought a set in 2011) but no more. All you can get is standard/blue streak stuff which is probably going to bounce over 5K

I'm adding to this original thread because I was wrong about the breaker point ignition system. After racking up 10,000 miles on my 1963 Fury, 318 poly powered, more door hardtop and averaging a whopping 11.5 mpg, I decided to replace the breaker points with a Pertronix system over the weekend. I purchased the Ignitor III and the matching Flamethrower III coil and hooked everything up exactly as instructed including removing the ballast resistor to accommodate for the new 0.32 ohm coil. WOW! I drove it 18 miles one way to work this morning and cannot believe the difference in power. I'm using half the throttle pedal to go the same speed. I haven't checked miles per gallon but I am pretty sure it must have improved to at least 15-16 mpg. I didn't want to change too many things at once and not know which one(s) made the improvement. This package was clearly the best $180 I've ever spent. Again. My accolades for the point system made sense when I said them because I simply didn't know better. I thought the car ran great and that the performance was normal and expected. I was wrong.

So, I'm thinking the next change to install a set of E3 spark plugs. Have any of you installed a set of E3s and seen performance gains? No gains? Not worth it?

You kept everything timing related the same? I have a P 111 system uninstalled as of yet.

Yes, RapidRobert. Timing is the same as before of 8 deg advance at idle. I did also discover that the vacuum advance module was toast and leaking, so I blocked off that vacuum port from the carburetor until I can pick up and install the new module tomorrow night. Even without the vacuum advance, I'm surprised at how much stronger the car accelerates from a stop. And, with the points ignition, I could reach in the car and cold start without touching the accelerator. The car behaved as though it was tuned perfectly.

Well, I installed a Pertronix III on my new build restoration of my 70 Charger because the Mopar ECU system has left me stranded before and an MSD just does not fit in my plan of looking all stock. The car would not start. I installed the OEM point dist to get it running and a few bugs worked out. They sent me a brand new one so we will see.

I'm thinking plugging the vac leak is accounting for most of the gain. You're sayin points started much easier? On my P 111 setting on my kitchen table there is alot of slop between the 2 sections, where the round black piece in the center connects the 2 plates where they rotate. I gotta measure that & give em a call to see if it that (amt) is acceptable.

Fastmark, you did match the Ignitor III up with a low ohm coil when you tried it? Well either way, starting with a broken new thing sucks every time. Also, what's a little 'hokey' about this set up is getting the ground strap and wires just the right length under the cap; long enough to minimize resistance against the vacuum advance plate movement and short enough not to interfere with the rotor or the old point cam now referred to as the reluctor.

For the record, I DO NOT work for Pertronix. And, if I don't stop trolling this thread while at my current job, I might end up having to send Pertronix a resume since they are only another 10-12 miles away.

I'll give you a (good) reference

Yes. I used the correct coil they called for and I ran my ground wire inside the cap as well. I even tried a direct wire from the battery like the trouble shooting guide advised. I had power to both sides of the coil but it would not pulse when you turned the motor over.

Myself, I'm an old fart that grew up with points. I ran the mallory 4 lobe dual points, accel, and other offerings etc. Back in the Mid 70's my mentor kept pushing me to convert over to electronic and I being young and knowing everything resisted. I came upon a conversion kit through some trading and decided to try it just to see for myself. I was quite amazed at the difference. Quicker starting, smoother running, etc. Did it make 5 or 10 HP difference ?? Don't know but the difference was definitely noticeable.
As far as reliability anything electronic is capable of failing without notice Including points systems. We had a 50 Chrysler towed in last month that just quit while the owner was driving it. A quick diagnosis revealed the condenser went bad.
In closing I am a proponent of electronic and lean towards using factory type conversions when possible due to the availability of replacement components should they be needed

So, the vacuum advance crapped out, and gave you a vacuum leak, and the points and plugs had 10,000 miles on them, and the new Pertronix system and a new coil made a huge difference in the performance and gas mileage? I sure hope so! Any tune up, coupled with stopping the vacuum leak, would have made a huge difference in both performance and gas mileage. Wait until you replace the non functioning vacuum advance, another increase in gas mileage is probably in the works.

The reality is a set of the good old points were worth 10,000 miles, and a few even went longer then that. How much the performance drops off over those 10,000 or more miles is hard to determine. At any rate, spark plugs on a point ignition system are pretty shot by 10,000 miles, and by 12,000-14,000 miles with an electronic ignition. The sad fact is most point ignition cars were grossly out of tune by the time most owners took the cars in to be tuned up. Yours was.

The electronic ignition simply replaces the points. That's all, nothing else. By replacing the points, the electronic ignition system remove the largest single wear item in the ignition system (the points themselves), and actually increased the spark plug life, which is the 2nd weakest link in the ignition system. For the record, when the electronic fuel injection came on board, the 3rd biggest issue in the ignition system was eliminated, the carburetor. Plug life was again extended with the consistency of the EFI over the carb.

Between 1972 and 1980, I worked as the tune up guy in the largest auto repair service station in our town. I did a lot of tune ups and carb rebuilds. I could set a set of points to proper dwell without needing to measure the gap with feeler gauges. I was around when all the "aftermarket" Pertronix and other systems were the rage. I swapped out points in many dual point dist as well. I was there when all the factories began installing electronic ignitions. I'm the guy that first informed GM their HEI distributors could burn through the rotors when their new system was less then 3 months old. I had several personal phone conversions with the GM trouble shooting guys in Detroit. The 73 Chevy 1 ton (privet carrier, US Mail) was the first HEI vehicle in our town, and it died on the road and was towed into our shop about 2 1/2 months old, with around 13,500 miles on it.

Nothing wrong with points ignition systems if you keep up with them. If your a put them in and forget it kind of person, or if you driving more then 10,000 miles a year, you will be much more happy with some kind of electronic ignition, yes, all of them can have issues at some time, so can points systems. Most electronic ignition systems that have been on the market a few years are probably good. Gene

Poorboy, I'm just as old, err, ummm, experienced as you when it comes to working on cars. Also grew up working in a garage setting point gap/dwell by sight and feel rather than gages.

I can't put enough detail in this thread. Those points didn't degrade over 10K miles. I keep a log of every gallon of gas and every mile driven. Since the points were new, they performed exactly the same for the entire 10K miles. After 10K miles driven, I could reach in the window on a cold engine and the car would start and idle after 2 cranks; with a leaking vacuum module. I check mpg every fill up and I always fill up. I was getting 11-12 mpg regularly from tank to tank. I managed 13 mpg on a 100 mile, all freeway trip. Once. I changed the vacuum advance module tonight. A slight improvement off the line but I expected much more improvement, to your point (pun intended) Poorboy.

The plugs, wires, cap, and rotor have way more than 10K miles. They are the same components that were in it when I dragged it home. They are the same plugs before and after the Pertronix install. Heck. I don't even know what brand they are.

I filled up tonight and this is the first full tank since the Pertronix install. I'll post my mpg on this tank after the next fill up.

I'd rather keep a spare factory type ECU, coil, ballast, AND distributor in my car then deal with setting points on the side of the road. I don't miss the days of crawling over and laying on top of a hot small block, or between the fenderwell and side of a slant 6, just to get back/down there and mess with changing the point gap by a couple thousandths just to get the dwell right, and THEN set the timing...with an electronic distributor I could mark the distributor and block, yank it, set the spare to the same marks and be running again and be reasonably assured the timing would be good enough even for a 200 mile trip til I could get home to throw a timing light on it. Besides, if anything failed usually it was the ballast or rarely an ECU - 2 minutes with a screwdriver or wrench, or less.
Some things just ain't worth the hassle any more. Heck, not even my lawn mower engines have points any more...

I can count the number of times I needed to set my points on the side of the road on my ....

nothing.

Because I never had to do that. And I've driven dozens of points vehicles from many manufacturers many, many miles.

I've also never has an ECU go back. Coil, yes. VR, yes.

i went from ecu to mallory dual point distributor this past year,i do not drive car that much,but when i do i have had no problem with performance,points are not difficult to install even if you had to replace some.points is all we had back in 60 era when these cars was new,i think they ran pretty well then too.classic industries still sell those dual points distributors brand new from mallory and points for them also.

I went with a Firecore Distributor. Beautiful thing. No ECU. Just bypass the blast resistor to get the distributor 12 volts, hook it to your coil... It was pretty dang simple and the tolerances on that baby are TIGHT! no wobble whatsoever in the shaft. I got that distributor on the urging of friends here and look forward to firing her up.

If anyone wants my unused MP electronic distributor and orange box, I'll give you a deal. Why use 30 year old technology even when you go electronic?

There is no new technology in the Firecore, just new packaging. It still works the same as the MoPar ECU setup.

Ask anybody that actually worked in garages and service stations or operated a towing service in the 70's about how so many vehicles would be no-starts or quit on the highway after a good rain, and how those issues just about disappeared with electronic ignitions. Buick and AMC V8's were the worst with their front mount windowed cap dist's, with inline 6's with their low mounted dist's close behind. While most people here are "car guys" that maintain their cars regularly, the masses don't, and damp weather showed how inferior the points ignitions with their low output coils and crappy secondary wires were.

While a stock compression, limited usage parade float may operate fine with a points (and coil) set-up, it's realistically hard to argue that an electronic ignition isn't superior overall, and that the modern multi spark ignition systems simply out perform the rest - if for no other reason than a points dist simply doesn't tolerate well the current draw that the heart of a good ignition - a hot coil - requires.

Points - 1900's tech

Mopar electronic - 1970's tech

Digital ECM - 2010's tech.

So obviously my vote is for a modern ignition box, or at least a Mopar unit, over a points system.

Sorry. We designed it for zero retard to 10k rpm. Upper and lower sealed roller bearings(instead of wearable bushings), Chrysler-style stronger magnetic pickup with reluctor provide a stronger signal at higher rpm's. We have the only designed conversion cap allowing a male post capability to the standard Mopar Electronic-style distibutors. The cnc machined 6061 T6 aluminum housing starts as hot forged unit. Hardly same old tech. Same idea, though, right about that. Use a magnet to move a spark from point a to point b.. Above post was referring to a RTR.. No box or ballast, just a coil and distributor.

All of the arguments pro and con reference points systems vs electronic boxes are valid. I suppose that it comes down to one's individual experiences. My experience over the past 50 years? I installed a Mopar electronic system on a 68 Road Runner in 1974, and it was running fine 15 years later when I sold it. A Mopar electronic kit installed on a 79 Cordoba has left me stranded with a dead box 4 times since 1984 according to my vehicle log; orange boxes, chrome boxes, seemed to make no difference. The Mopar box on my 70 Charger R/T has fizzled twice in 2 years, a NAPA replacement didn't last a month before it quit dead, and the spare I bought for emergencies wouldn't let the car rev over 4000 rpm. I've never had that lack of dependability in any point system I've ever run.

Not saying no improvements, but it's technology is not "modern" compared to the mopar setup.

yep, just moving a spark around.

So, I checked the mileage driving exactly the same route to and from work as before the conversion from points to Pertronix Ignitor III. 13.92 mpg! May I round that to 14 mpg? Previous typical mileage was between 11-12 mpg. The car NEVER, even on a totally highway mileage trip, bettered 13 mpg with the point ignition. That's a 21% improvement in mpg. I'm sold. The engine just plain pulls like it has more power compared to with the point ignition. As I mentioned, I did have a vacuum module leak discovered during the conversion. I can run a tank with the vacuum advance unhooked and unplugged for understanding the contribution of that fail correction to the performance.

Updating this post now at 16,000 miles after installing Pertronix Ignitor III and Flamethrower coil. If you've upgraded a stock Poly 318 A-engine points distributor with the Ignitor III, it requires a ground strap to pass through the 2-wire grommet hole. If not enough slack is left in the flat, braided steel ground strap, the vacuum advance works pulling counterclockwise since the rotation on a small block distributor is clockwise. If not enough slack, the braided cable finally fatigues after being pulled on by the vacuum advance. FAIL. Visually, the cable looks "OK". However, the frays of ground strap are at rest and both ends together after breakage appear to be OK. Try pushing the strap around sideways with the blade of a small flat screwdriver to reveal either a severed strap or it's OK. Replace ground strap as required. No I don't work for Pertronix. I just found that I was a big block guy trying to work on a Poly 318 and had to learn the hard way. 16,000 miles on an Ignitor III module and Flamethrower coil now in a 63 Fury More Door. No problems after the ground strap repair after 6,000 miles due to my not knowing what I was doing. Now averaging around 14.5 mpg on freeway 36 round-trip miles to work daily.

watch any harness from evans. last ones (engine harness and wiper harness) i got from him had bad crimps all over the damn things. found a post here at the time that quite a few people had the same issues with his harnesses..

Yeah, the engine harness I got from Evans almost 20 yrs ago had this problem too. I needed to re-route a wire (not his fault, mine) and proceeded to unwrap it and found a major junction not crimped. Would have been cute trying to troubleshoot that if it hadn't been found. I went ahead and unwrapped the whole harness to check everything and found one more that wasn't crimped.

When I ordered mine back then, I got the impression this was something Bill started doing when he retired.