Hey everyone. I just replaced my distributor. Upon taking my old one out I saw the threaded holes for the cap were completely cracked through on both tabs. Also my distributor has a lot of play in it. Probably almost a 1/4 inch up and down movement. There was also a lot of wear on the gear itself.

So anyway. I followed everything in the Haynes manual about taking it out and replacing it WITHOUT MOVING CRANKSHAFT. Then new distributor slip right into place and locked in. But it was like one tooth off from my markings. I did not understand this since nothing had moved. The Haynes manual says to crank motor over by hand until the shaft drops in onto the oil shaft. I did that and tried cranker her over. It turned half a turn then shut itself off. So I figured maybe it needed to come all the way around. So I turned it over until the shaft set back flush to block over the oil shaft. Then it would even budge when I tried cranking. So with the help of a friend we took the new distributor back out. Found TDC then turned it a little more until the timing mark was lined up with "0" on the motor timing tab(per Haynes manual instructions). I then installed the new distributor again and made sure the rotor was between 1 and 6 on the cap. I bolted everything back up and plugged everything in. When I tried to start it she turned over great!!! Nice and smooth. BUT she would not fire up. We could smell the gas so we checked for spark. We got spark and we are getting air. We figured it was a little flooded from us trying to start it earlier before we found TDC. So we let it sit a while and tried about an hour later. This time she sounds like she wants to fire up but wont. Just kind of stutters a little and some popping in the exhaust but mildly. The battery now needs to charge.

Any suggestions? Does it sound like I did something wrong?

 

sounds like you missed it by a tooth
try this method
hope it helps
https://blazerforum.com/forum/tech-a...-timing-24373/

 

You put it between 1 and 6?

Umm move the distributor to 1 at TDC and it should fire then adjust for proper time.

 

Really. The book says between 1 and 6 due to it already being AT TDC on cylinder 1. So I should be able to mark the rotor and base then use the priming gear to move the oil shaft back enough to equal one tooth and I should be fine?

 

I tried one tooth in either direction One tooth back seemed to turn over smoother then one tooth forward. I will just use the instructions from the link. As long as I am on the compression stroke it seems pretty fool proof. Watch me be the fool though.

 

the first distributor I got was assembled wrong. After aligning the mark on the shaft and gear it was 180 off. When i got TDC on this new one it looks correct. Now it is slightly different then the one in the picture. The rotor is before the screw hole/#1 on rotor. I am thinking I should move it one tooth forward. Maybe this will be what I need? Sound right?

 

when we did mine, we cranked the motor with a ratchet to get the timing marks lined up, then aligned the oil pump with a long flat screwdriver, then insert distributer so that the rotor points to the "6" marked on the distributor casing.... if it wont fire it is 180 out and just remove and rotate the dist 180 and reinstall...super simple.

 

Got it. Finally got it to fire up. It did need to be at the 6 and not the 1.