I screwed up. Before I pulled the Distributor out I did think to make a pencil mark on the Intake & the Distributor. Only problem is before I re-installed the Intake I cleaned off the mark. Also I did not take note of how the Rotor was pointing. I re-installed it but I can tell it's way off. It won't start & sounds very different when trying to start. Any ideas how I can get it back to normal? Thanks, Mike
Find the number 1 cylinder. Take the plug out. Have someone crank the engine with the starter, dont act like you are starting it. Short bursts of cranking are in order here. You are trying to find top dead center. Put a finger over the spark plug hole, When you feel a burst of air, the air will make you move your finger, that is top dead center, if you go past it too far, that is bad. Best if the engine quits turning just as the force of air makes you move your finger. Adjust the distributor with the rotor pointing at the number one spark plug wire in the dist cap. This should at least get the car running. Then time it and you are done. With all this said, the vacuum advance should be pointing towards the front of the car. If it doesnt, then you are 180 degrees off. I hope this helps, Was in the same situation many years ago, once you learn it you got it. Dan
Remove number 1 spark plug. Put your finger tightly over plug hole. Bump engine over slowly with coil wire disconnected until you feel pressure push your finger. Then look for your timing marks on your balancer and manually turn engine in normal direction of rotation until about 10 degrees before top dead center. Then drop in your distributor with the rotor pointing at the number 1 plug wire. Most times the distributor will not seat all the way down because of the oil pump drive not lining up. If it does this just apply slight downward pressure on the distributor body while bumping or manually turning engine until distributor drops in. Then bring timing marks around to 10 BTDC again and see if rotor lines up with number 1 or number 6(early 302 firing order) if you just turned the engine one revolution. If you cannot rotate the distributor housing enough to line the rotor with number 1 plug wire because of vacuum chamber hitting water neck or intake manifold etc. you will have to pull distributor to move one tooth and try again. HTH
Guys I tried to follow your advise to the letter & did get it done. It took me about 5 times finding TDC to finally get it running. I guess I was just a little off each time til I finally got it right. Without the advise I would not have had a clue how to get her running again. Thanks again, Mike
Re: Distributor I've never heard of having the rotor lining up with the number 6 plug wire. Where can I find that info? When I was timing my Mav, going by all the info you provided, I did notice the rotor was pointing to number 6. Thinking this was wrong, I readjusted having it point to number 1. Guess what, it didn't work. Needless to say, it's back to number 6. This is interesting info. Why don't repair manuals state this? Thanx
Thanks Hotrod! It still doesn't run perfect. When you press the gas pedal it tries to die & sputters. After it catches on it seems to run perfect. If you let off the gas & press it again it does the same thing. After you get to 50 MPH it doesn't do it anymore. I have the Timing set perfect. Dwell is perfect. I put new plugs, plug wires, points, condenser, rotor, distributor cap, new intake & Holley 600. It is original Distributor & I think maybe the Vacuum advance is not working. A friend told me to take the dis cap off & blow through the vacuum hose & the advance should move. It didn't move? Any thoughts???? Mike
When the timing marks on the ballancer are brought to top dead center the rotor will be pointing to either number 1 or number 6 depending on which stroke number 1 is on (compression or overlap). With number 1 on compression, the rotor will be pointing to number 1. Turn the crank one revolution and number 1 is on overlap. The rotor will be pointing to number 6(on compression). Turn the crank one more revolution and rotor is back to number 1. The rotor turns one revolution for every two revolutions of the crank. Hope this isn't too confusing.
Help: Dist Not confusing at all - I actually feel like a dope because you explained it all too logically. Thanks for the insight.
