Well Mr Moderator --- I can see you have zero practical factors in actually getting your hands dirty and you advise from a book and a Moderator's bat.

You really dropped a deuce in your mess kit here .....

Let's start at the simple ---> just for you, Mr Mod:

The P1345 code in a Chevy indicates a problem with the correlation between the crankshaft and camshaft positions, often due to faulty sensors or issues with the distributor. Common symptoms include poor engine performance, rough idling, and hard starting.

Did you use that page in your book to do something naughty in the basement?

How did you miss this from the OP:
The play is the advance mechanism he feels under the rotor --- perfectly normal --- necessary, really.

If the inner shaft and the outer shaft in the distributor don't allow that "play" the distributor is no good, gummed up, bent or somehow damaged because it HAS to move to accommodate ignition advance --- and there ya go --- a P1345.

//// and before you start drooling all over your bib, yes ---- there is mechanical advance in this distributor --- and that generally blows up your "there ain't no timing cred in the placement of the distributor" crappola-of-the mouth.

The only un-allowable play in this distributor is when the shaft eats the lower bushing and elongates it, causing fluctuations in timing (at the distributor --- (NO! Tell us it's not so, Mr. Wizard --- 'cause you said there's no timing in the distributor --- did you lie to use, Mr Wizard/Mod?!) That oughtta pop your textured balloon ..........

If GM didn't use the distributor to set base timing when the engine is cranked --- not running ---- cranking ----- there'd be no there, there, for the ignition to start its reference point to set the fuel on fire inside the cylinder thingys when starting.

Any common mechanic knows you don't have to keep looking and poking and twisting the distributor shaft to get it into the oil pump ... go clutch your pearls ----- better yet --- suck on them. This is another deuce in the kit that pops your cred.

FUN FACT! Drop the distributor into the round hole thingy - where it will be close to the correct timing and tap the starter ... maybe just once or a few times.

The gears are already meshed and when you make the cam move (it moves when the starter turns the crankshaft that is attached to the cam via the timing gears and chain - just trying to help you not look totally ignorant, Mr. Mod) ---- and once the distributor drops down --- then you can continue snugging down the clamp.

Gawd --- get a long screwdriver and a flashlight ------ hahahahahahahah --- total ignorance.

Gawd #2 ---- having to point that out to you ---- YOU the professor here with no dirty fingernails --- shows that your parents never threw you out of their basement.

You totally missed what the OP was saying ---> that the old distributor had some "issues" but you wanna go get all book-y on him. Push back from your Twinkie snarffling-trough and go outside and see some sunlight.

You don't want to hear -- and worse yet --- allow truth to exist on this site --- you're a bully with a license to control other people --- a power trip.

If people follow your "advice" they deserve what they get.

I can't put up with you on a power trip, no practical advice and no field experience. You have sucked this site into your fetid personal mantra of obedience --- ignorant as it is.

You don't have to show me the door --- I'm already gone!

 

Mr Bass Surfer, the Internet is full of people like you. Think they know it all, won't listen, and put out a lot of misinformation. I have been wrong before, but not this time and no amount of insults will change this! I bet that you get this message and that you will be back using a different name - thinking you are very smart! So much for being gone! But that's the way the Internet works. As for me, your opinion of my expertise just doesn't bother me. But too bad you turned this guys thread into your own grandstanding.

By the way, swartlkk is administrator of this site (just in case you missed it)

 

I'm not sure what part of lets not pull the other thread more off topic you did not understand, but here we go... I moved this to a new thread so this discussion can go where it must without disrupting someone else's request for help as stipulated.

You seem to be quite confused by the vehicles we are discussing here. Everything that you have decided to weigh in on has been 2nd Gen S-series trucks with EDI ignition systems, not some old SBC with an HEI distributor. This is where your lack of knowledge on the subject is glaringly obvious. The EDI distributor does not have a mechanical advance so the slop being discussed in the previous thread is simply the backlash in the cam gear to distributor gear interface, nothing more.

Again, this goes back to my explanation in the previous thread. The CKP sensor is used by the ECM to trigger spark timing. The distributor is just a delivery method and has nothing to do with the precise timing of the spark. The ECM uses the CKP sensor while the engine is cranking and running to accurately determine when to initiate spark. The ECM then commands the ICM (ignition control module) to trigger the coil to send spark to the distributor at the appropriate time. The position of the distributor has more to do with keeping the rotor to distributor cap post optimally aligned across the full range of timing advance/retard. Too far one way or the other and you could be jumping a large gap under the distributor cap, losing spark intensity at the one extreme of the spark table or the other which definitely could cause driveability concerns depending on which side of it was off. Now this should trigger a code for CMP/CKP correlation error (P01345).

As to my qualifications, you can find them in other threads. My hands stay dirty, sir. While working on these trucks specifically might not be my front line job, I know more about them than your average tech as I have been helping members here for over 20 years now.

And Les, well, he has probably forgotten more about fixing vehicles than most of us would know... You are barking up the wrong tree there man.