I know the title makes it sound simple but I've double triple and ... well i spent 2 hours re-lining up the distributor constantly to no effect. I replaced the dist. on my 84 S10 blazer 2.8L because the advance was sticking so it would run ok but it would bog down when you went to drive it. I took it out friday night and ordered new distributor. Installed the new one this morning. Lined up the biggest notch in the balancer with 0 on the timing marks and pulled #1 plug to verify it was at TDC compression and it was. I then installed the distributor and dropped it in the only notch that would line it up with #1 on the cap but for some reason it wont start to save it's butt.. It has fuel because it's fouling the plugs and i pulled the coil wire and the plugs one by one to make sure everything was getting spark and it is.. im scratching my head here. All i did was replace the distributor, replace the originally fouled plugs and i figured since i had it and had the time i'd do the fuel filter which was pretty nasty too. I still cant see where im going wrong it's acting like the distributor isnt lining up

 

You could be lined up on the crank, but still out 180 degrees. The crank has to rotate twice to give you another compression stroke, you may simply be lining everything up on an exhaust stroke. Stick your finger in the #1 hole while someone rotates the crank for you and it will blow out past your finger to tell you its the compression stroke for sure. Then line up your notch which will be close to the timing mark, drop distrubtor in pointing at #1, and voila.

 

I tried first rotating it 180 and still NG. I did what i was procrastinating on, the tedious way. Turn the dist. one tooth then put it back together and try cranking it. After about 5 teeth and over an hour later it finally fired up. With where the distributor at it's kinda tough getting the cap off then getting the dist. loose to move it heh. It's hard working on anything in this engine honestly but finally it runs, just gota fix the fuel pump wire and i'll be good.