1973 225 valve adjustment help!please!
does a slant usually have a slight lope at idle with a stock cam
No. Go to the rear of the car and listen to the exhaust. It should be a very even sound with only very slight warble. If there's a pronounced rhythm to it, if you can hear one cylinder making different exhaust noise than the other five, then you've got confirmation that something's amiss. Look for a single-cylinder vacuum leak. Check at the rearmost intake runner's vacuum take-off tap; make sure all hoses connected to it are in good shape and are running where they're supposed to. Make sure there aren't any open vacuum nipples on it. Have you done the rest of a tune-up yet?
What's your ignition timing set at? Factory spec in '73 is 0° (TDC) but this is a very retarded setting meant to squeak the new '73s past Federal emissions type-approval tests. Try 5° BTDC. You will want to make sure the timing mark is accurate, because the outer ring member of the vibration damper can slip relative to the inner hub. To check this, stick a straightened-out coathanger wire or similar into the frontmost spark plug hole, and turn the engine by hand (easier with no spark plugs installed) until the wire stops moving upward out of the plug hole. Then check where the mark on the crank pulley is relative to the timing indicator.
could it be the timing chain has stretched
Certainly could be! Remove the distributor cap and turn the engine manually with the fan and belt in one direction until you see the distributor rotor begin to move. Then turn it the other direction and watch the rotor; if there's any discernible lag between your moving the engine and the rotor turning, the timing chain is slack and will want replacement. It makes sense at that time to do a super-careful job of getting the camshaft timed precisely to optimise your engine's operation for economy. Details are in multiple threads and you can be pointed at one if your engines appear to need this sort of attention.
i cant seem to find or reach the distributor hold down bolt
It's a 7/16" bolt just forward of the distributor body, holding the distributor hold-down plate to the block. Loosen it with an ordinary 7/16" socket on a long extension, then rotate the distributor counterclockwise to advance or clockwise to retard the timing. There is also a second bolt on the underside of the distributor, holding the hold-down plate to the distributor body. Once you've loosened the plate-to-block bolt, if you run out of adjustment room in the plate slot before you reach your desired timing setting, you can loosen the underside bolt and there's a much longer adjustment slot there. Doing so with the distributor installed requires a special wrench, either bought or cobbled (the official one, which also works well on the plate-to-block bolt, is
here). If no special wrench, you'll have to remove the distributor to get access to the second bolt.
You'll want to ditch that cheesy air filter and find a correct air cleaner assembly to put back on. It's a thermostatic type that'll give you better driveability and economy (i.e., better performance), see
here.
One other thing you'll want to do on this '73 if it hasn't yet been done: bypass the OSAC valve. It's on the passenger side of the firewall, and has one hose running to the carburetor and another hose running to the distributor. Run a hose directly from the carburetor to the distributor without stopping at the valve.
