Quote: hold the washer on the edge in a pair of vice grips then go slowly with your drill press. I've been wondering if your dist is the original 40+ year old unit & what shape the bushings (side play on the top slot assy) are in. I was thinking that maybe when they shortened the slots they exchanged the dist for a rebuilt one but maybe they didn't. See how much side play you have. Actually your lower end play is good from your descrip and they did no damage by deburring the welding and that was not what caused the excessive upper axial play, probably just a stackup of tolerances & now all is good only the upper play needs to be reduced to keep the rotor off of the cap terminals if the side play is good. But is the slot length they reduced it to correct for your app. But we need to solve the original complaint & worry about slot length later. As Scratchn said the rebuilt dists are a good deal for the money & you can even switch the cam/slots assy between the two as when they rebuild they only replace the 2 bushings and size them by reaming to fit the shaft as the rebuild dist will likely have the way too much mechanical (slot length) like yours originally had (36 at the crank ) before it was welded. I'd suggest get a washer under the nub, get a new cap/rotor and continue on to solve the original complaint unless your bushing side play is excessive right now. Save the old cap to drill it to check rotor phasing
Hmm... I think I can do that with the vice-grips. I'll also clamp the grips onto the drill press platform to make sure the whole setup doesn't try to 'wander'. I'm concerned about the resulting washer collapsing from the vice-grips when I drill out the center and weaken the washer- but then again I've got a small bag of the suckers so if that happens I can always try again.....
A thought- rather than just drill out one washer I could drill out several by stacking them. That way there'll be less worry about the vice-grip crushing or distorting the results.
As for the distributor itself- I think the side play on both the cam/slot shaft and the lower shaft is ok- I did wiggle both around and they felt pretty tight. As for as the end play on the cam/slot shaft I keep looking at the assembly and can only conclude that it's just wear that caused the excessive end-play. The only other thing I can think of that might cause it is poorly designed cap/rotor combination. Maybe the cap and rotor I currently have were not meant to run with each other? I can check them for part numbers.
) before it was welded. I'd suggest get a washer under the nub, get a new cap/rotor and continue on to solve the original complaint unless your bushing side play is excessive right now. Save the old cap to drill it to check rotor phasing 
