Distributor noise

There's noise coming from the distrib when the car is on. After some painstaking strips of the stupid left screw, we removed the cap to find that the bolt that holds the rotor is loose, slightly moving side to side and up and down. I really don't want to replace the distributor but does this mean the car needs a new one?

yes the rotor is a very little loose but we think the knocking was from one of the cylinders now. Unless you think the dist could still make noise?

up and down movement about a 1/8' is normal, side to side is not. I jsut got my new dist. yesterday for the same problem.