318 LA Rotor position and TDC questions
personally i'd rotate that dist a little to the right so the vac advance is pointing straighter to the right fenderwell.
What he said.
The most important point has been said several times; the #1 piston has to be at TDC on the compression stroke.
The rotor can be pointing anywhere, you just put #1 plugwire into whatever tower is closest to being above it.
But before you do that, you need to put the Vcan into a decent working relationship, and align the magnetic pick-up to a reluctor vane.
To do that;
starting from TDC-compression, back the crank up CCW from the front, to 10* BTDC. Then push the Vcan all the way CW from the top, to the firewall on the passenger side. Pop the rotor off, Observe the relationship of the reluctor vane to the protruding nub on the magnetic pick-up. Align the NUB, with the nearest vane, by pulling the Vcan towards the rad. Lock it down. Install the rotor and seat it. With a sharpie, index the OUT-side of the distributor body where the rotor is pointing. That will be where #1 plugwire will plug in. Install the cap, and wire the rest in.
If the mark you made is not under a tower, within about 1/3 of the distance between towers, then the rotor may have to be indexed. That's another post.
Start the engine and set the POWER-Timing.
Now, if your rotor is not pointing to the front #1 intake bolt,
this is no big deal, to you.
But any mechanic who sees this when trying to solve a no-start, will jump to the conclusion that it got there by the timing chain having jumped a few teeth.If He's a good mechanic, he'll figure it out pretty quick. But the figuring, costs you money. If he's not a good mechanic, you might return to find the front of your engine scattered all over the workbench..... costing you even more money.
So in the interest of saving you money, it behooves you to put it where the textbooks say to put it. And that procedure has already been detailed.
Good luck
