318 TDC help

You are on the right track. Someone marked the lines yellow. From the factory, the indented line that goes all the way across is TDC ( top dead center for cylinder #1). The smaller indented lines can occur on either side of the TDC mark. On one side of the TDC line these partial lines mean 2 degrees, 4 degrees, 6 degrees, 8 degrees and so on. Depending on which side of TDC these lines are found, these small lines will be BTC ( before top dead center) or ATC (after top dead center). You should clean up the damper so that you can clearly see these lines. Even sandpaper. The procedure for orienting your distributer - #1- remove #1 spark plug. #2- with your finger covering that hole, bump the starter slowly until you feel a large puff of air coming out of that hole. It will not hurt you, this is the piston coming up on the compression stroke. #3- look down on your damper and you should see the large line ( TDC) very close to the pointer. Turn the engine so that TDC and the pointer are aligned. Congratulations, your engine is now at TDC. #4- locate #1 spark plug wire on your distributer cap. Remove cap, is the rotor pointing at #1 wire? If not, then remove the distributer and set back in to point to that wire. This should be close enough now to start the motor. Always follow up with a timing light to confirm. Hope this helps.