stupid timing, or is it me?
 

So this distributor is giving me hell. I can seem to change distributor rotors all day no problem but simply pulling the distributor and setting it back tdc at 6 just don't cut it. I've checked the spark, gas, put it in 0, 180,back to zero, repeat. It runs fine until it throws a rotor badly, messes up the distributor, and I do everything to put it in rite, get charged by a mechanic 450 to tell me it needed at 187 turn and... what am I doing wrong? So tired of messing with this problem...

Did you put the number 1 cylinder top dead center?

What do you mean by "throws a rotor badly" ? , I don't think anything inside the distributor should be changing .