71 dart shooting flames from carb, wont start

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gzdart

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my head gasket blew. so i decided to fix it myself. in the process, i dismantled the heads and cleaned them and the valves with a wire wheel, and oven cleaner. i cleaned the intake manifold and valve covers, with new gaskets. i replaced the valve stem seals too. i used all felpro gaskets and the copper spray sealant on the heads. i also replaced the water pump and starter, put on new thermostat and housing, and new battery. all napa brand parts (except battery from autozone). everything is back together.

i try to start my car, and it wont start. it just cranks and cranks, and sometimes shoots fire from the carb when i gas it. occasionally making a weird noise of air releasing (or pressure?).

now, my best guess is that i messed up the timing somewhere when pulling the distributor out during the process. i have the plugs installed into the cap in the correct order listed on intake manifold, and the dist rotor was pointing towards carb at 12 o'clock when viewed from driver seat. (#1 plug is also in that direction, but i think the wires may have been put in differently before rebuild)

so...

how exactly do i set "TDC" and get the timing set correctly? also, is there any other possibility that could be causing this? im pretty sure i installed everything correctly. could something i overlooked in the process be causing this?

please help, thanks for reading.
 
Pull #1 plug, put finger over hole, crank engine over til it blows your finger out.

Turn crank until it's about 10* BTDC then line up #1 plug wire with where the rotor is pointing. If the rotor is pointing towards the pass rear corner, pull it out and turn rotor 180* and reinstall.
 
I am guessing your timimg is 180 out. Remove your Dist. holding the rotor spin it 180 and reinstall.
 
that makes sense, its coming back to me now that the plug wires were installed with #1 facing towards the cab instead of the engine, which i thought was odd, but it mustve been installed backwards at some point in time and the mechanic just flipped the wires instead. there were a few shortcuts taken that ive noticed so far, like new gaskets placed over old without them being scraped off, etc... i got the car for $900 from a friend who moved to seattle, she had taken it to sun devil auto (total ripoff imo). previously it had been owned by an elderly woman.

im gonna have a go at it today and ill let you know how it turns out.

p.s. crackedback... awesome .gif. ;)
 
gzdart said:
there were a few shortcuts taken that ive noticed so far, like new gaskets placed over old without them being scraped off, etc...
Click to expand...

Yikes!!! That scares the hell out of me!


gzdart said:
i got the car for $900 from a friend who moved to seattle, she had taken it to sun devil auto (total ripoff imo). previously it had been owned by an elderly woman.
Click to expand...

Isn't it funny that every used car ever sold, (including my Dart) was bought from an elderly woman?
 
haha yeah, that seems to be the choice for old women... should i let it affect my ego? ;)

anyhow, THANKS guys! it turns out that was exactly the problem. i flipped the rotor 180 degrees and she fired right up and idles just fine. took it around the block with no problems. :) :hello1:
 
My 69 Barracuda was actually owned by a little old lady from Camarillo, Ca. It had bad U-joints and she thought something was really wrong with it so I got it cheap.

As for the part about putting a new gasket over the old one... that's just scary!

Saetun said:
Yikes!!! That scares the hell out of me!




Isn't it funny that every used car ever sold, (including my Dart) was bought from an elderly woman?
Click to expand...
 
You didn't bother to tell us what engine is in your car. Is it 6 or 8 cyl? If 8 cyl, is the distributor in the front (BB/RB) or rear (SB). Are you sure your distributor wires are in the correct order in the correct rotational direction? The rotor in SB and BB rotates in different directions. They use the same cap, which has 2 arrows on it to tell you where the #1 wires should be for each rotation.
 
BillGrissom said:
You didn't bother to tell us what engine is in your car. Is it 6 or 8 cyl? If 8 cyl, is the distributor in the front (BB/RB) or rear (SB). Are you sure your distributor wires are in the correct order in the correct rotational direction? The rotor in SB and BB rotates in different directions. They use the same cap, which has 2 arrows on it to tell you where the #1 wires should be for each rotation.
Click to expand...

its an LA 318. i solved the problem immediately by moving the distributor rotor 180 degrees. the reason this came to be was the plug wires were installed wrong when i got the car, because the dist rotor was backwards. so when i put it back together and installed wires in the correct position, the rotor needed to be turned. the car starts right up no problems now.
 
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