Ok, first of all I did manage to find a couple of nylon bushings at Lowes that will work if need be. I called the dealer Friday about the collar kit but I'm told that the part number isn't coming up as being valid on the parts system, so it's no longer available (big surprise)

However, I took another look at the original collar and I think it's actually ok- I'm going to go with it and if it turns out that it's got to be replaced, well I now have some collars that could do the job.

My current question though: when reassembling the collar on the shaft I took a measurement of the end-play of the lower shaft and got a pretty low number- .002-.003. Plus I could feel a slight binding going on when I turned the lower shaft, so I took it all apart and looked again. I noticed that the upper bearing in the distributor body seems to sit up higher out of the 'floor' of the distributor body than I thought it should- about 1/8-1/4" above. This may or may not be correct, I don't know- I would've thought the top edge of the bearing would be more or less flush with the floor.

But to be sure, I thought I'd ask first to see if that's ok because if it isn't, it might explain the binding and small end-play. But if it is, then I'm wondering if I can eliminate one of the two washers that's under the centrifugal assembly, to try to get a little more end-play and less binding.

But if those two washers needs to be there though, is there anything else I can do to increase the end-play?

David