Rebuilt 273 - starting for the first time! Help!

Johnny Dart said

Might want to take a peek and see that the distributor drive gear is pointing at the front left manifold bolt,at TDC.

Some will say it doesn't matter as long as blah blah blah.

But I like to do things the way the factory intended. No questions that way.

Put the motor on TDC.
Pull the distributor.
The groove on the dist gear should face the front left manifold bolt.
You can either eye it,or use a straight edge.
If not,back it out with a screwdriver,and reinstall it so it is in alignment with the front left manifold bolt.
Now reinstall the dist so your rotor faces the same bolt.
Leave the motor right there (TDC)for firing.

Click to expand...

That works fine as long as you are using a mopar distributor. If you use an MSD, the drive tang will be way off from where the book says #1 plug wire goes.



Get the thing to #1 compression stroke on balancer/timing mark. Make sure the rotor points to whatever cap tower #1 plug wire is in. You can do a quick timing deal by just twisting the distributor body with a timing light attached with engine at TDC. Give it about a 10* twist CCW. Then try to start it.

If the carb is dry, use a kids liquid medicine syringe from a pharmacy to fill the carb bowls through it's vent tubes. If a holley, pull the sight plugs and look for the level as you fill it. You don't need to fill it completely.

You may need to advance it more to get it started initially.