can't start the engine after dist. vacuum change

I had a "mobile mechanic" come out to change the distributor on the car because the vacuum advance wasn't working. I had the car parked at work and needed it done that night so I could take it to get it dyno'd. He tells me that all he did is change the vacuum advance and not the distributor. He says the car drives fine and off he goes. I go to drive the car home and it runs so rough I can't get past 15 mph. I pull off the side of the road, disconnect the vacuum hose and still runs really rough and turns off after a few minutes.
I ended up getting it towed home because I can't reach him to come back and tell me what the heck he did wrong. This morning I try to set the timing, car won't even stay on but 1-2 second. I loosed the dizzy bolt and make some small turns in each direction but still can't get it to stay on.

Now what?

 

double check the wiring to each spark plug. maybe he has put them on in the wrong order

 

I checked them all, they are correct. The carb he didn't touch so I'm sure it's not that.

 

Keep trying to get a hold of the guy that screwed it up in the first place.

also do you still have points and condenser in the distributor or have you converted it to electronic ignition?? If it is still point reset them as if he replaced a worn vacuum advance plate then it may have thrown the gap in the point off

 

I am trying to contact him but he says he has no time. Don't think I want him working on it anyway. The distributor was converted to electronic.

 

Um, how did you find this guy? Through a friend, a company? Sounds like a 'Take your money and run' deal.

Check the basics. Pop the cap off and look and see if anything is out of whack. Is the cap and rotor good? (could he have swapped parts on you?) Check the vacuum advance by sucking on it. It should advance correctly. Make sure the vacuum advance line is connected at the other end. Check for spark at the plugs. A stall can be caused by a vacuum leak, so check the vacuum lines and such.

 

Good call on the vacuum. I'll check all the hoses, didn't think about that.

Yea, he did the work and just kinda left me hanging. No worries, he hasn't gotten paid yet. He was expecting more work and he said I can pay him once he does the next job (was gonna have him do my breakd on my truck). He can definitely kiss all that good buy.

 

Does the rotor look OK??
Cant think of what he could have messed up just switching the advance.

Coincidence??

 

yea, rotor looks fine. Maybe coincidence. I'll fiddle with it some more, if I can't figure it out I'll take it in.

 

Be certain the rotor is pointing to the # tower on the dist cap with the #1 cyl at TDC on the compression stroke.He may have pulled the dist to make the repair(not knowing any better) and botched up the timing on the re-install.

 

on the inside of the distrubtor cap in the center is a cabon buton that is susposed to touch the center of the rotor. if the cap is not put on strieght it can break the buton off. this could be the problem.

 

so what did this so called mechanid do? change the vacuum advance or convert it to electric ignition, too?
please post a pictur of the dizzy with the cap off!

 

X2

 

I'll take a pic and I'll post it. But as far as I know he didn't touch anything else, I even asked him. He said he basically just changed the vacuum module.

 

He should not have had to pull the distributor just to swap the vacuum can so the timing should be the same as before. Vacuum leaks sound like the culprit. But I would think it would need a bigger leak than a bad canister or loose hose of that size to make it run that bad. I would take a real close look at the rotor button like said and the dist. cap. A cracked cap will really make it run bad if at all. I sure wouldn't let him near my brakes if he won't stand behind a small job like a vacuum canister swap.
It should run pretty decent even if the canister is bad though it will not have any where near the pep as before
clint