just need a quick confirmation on my idiocy

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Number one cylinder on the compression stroke, check by slowly rotating the engine with the valve cover off and watch the intake valve go al the way down and then all the way back up, now you should be close to TDC.
I actually set the balancer mark at 10* BTDC ( stock initial timing ) they start much easier.
Rotor can now be set to match up with number one terminal on the cap by rotating the distributor.
Lock it down you good to start.
stump What the ....?
You disagree.
Tell us why, I have been setting up engines to start with the above procedure for more than 4 decades it has never failed me.
 
stump What the ....?
You disagree.
Tell us why, I have been setting up engines to start with the above procedure for more than 4 decades it has never failed me.

I'm sorry for not realizing but what this in reply to? I just wanted to make sure I'm not about to hop in to the wrong procedure, but planned on just doing what was listed regarding setting back to comp tdc, removing dist, realigning oil pump drive gear/ slot with cylinder 1 as pictured in 1WildRT's photo, and then go about reinstalling dist, POSSIBLY clocking in a different manner regarding the vacuum advance everyone was mentioning, confirming proper points orientation on the dist, and buttoning it all up from there?

I seriously CANNOT thank everyone enough for the replies. There is SO much information given so quickly and I appreciate it beyond belief.

-kiyoshi
 
Alrighty i have everything off and will update

Also, at the proper tdc, that being compression tdc, both valves will be all the way up/unsprung/closed, correct?

After I pass the proper tdc, it would be the exhaust valve that starts to open, correct?

Also also, it very much appears that when spinning the hex for the oil pump shaft to prime it, and I don't know why I thought it wouldn't matter, it does indeed appear indexed incorrectly. At the tdc i had it at (unconfirmed if comp yet) the slot in the oil pump shaft was pointed closer to the driver rear piston than anything closer to the driver front #1 piston. Again will update soon

Thank you again

-kiyoshi

20220507_094058.jpg
 
Alright so I had it at an unconfirmed tdc, when I went to spin it, the #1 piston intake valve started to compress down/ open. Looking closer on the timing marks on the pulley itself, it listed "v8" for that set of marks that was being used, and was the only line marked white and the only line with the side touching the block. All the other timing lines were on the opposite side of the pulley, if that makes sense

I continued to spin the crank until back at tdc marking on the pulley again. Where I'm at, I have spun one full tdc from initially pictured where intake valve opened next, both valves currently seem closed, piston #1 is at top of travel, and again oil pump shaft appears to be indexed incorrectly

Is this correct? The fix would be to simply spun the oil pump shaft with the proper hex just a little further until the oil pump gear slot is properly aligned once installed?

Thank you again

-kiyoshi
 
Turn the drive so the index is more towards the front headlight, that is over the front tire. Once it drops in it will turns as it engages with your camshaft. So make sure you account for that. Might have to start with the tang pointing straight ahead and it will turn to proper location as you install it.

With that distributor, index pump drive to the #1 intake bolt area and go with it. Drop in distributor, give the vac can some counter clockwise twist ability and start with the cap tower where rotor tip is pointed as #1 plug wire.
 
Alright so I had it at an unconfirmed tdc, when I went to spin it, the #1 piston intake valve started to compress down/ open. Looking closer on the timing marks on the pulley itself, it listed "v8" for that set of marks that was being used, and was the only line marked white and the only line with the side touching the block. All the other timing lines were on the opposite side of the pulley, if that makes sense

I continued to spin the crank until back at tdc marking on the pulley again. Where I'm at, I have spun one full tdc from initially pictured where intake valve opened next, both valves currently seem closed, piston #1 is at top of travel, and again oil pump shaft appears to be indexed incorrectly


Is this correct? The fix would be to simply spun the oil pump shaft with the proper hex just a little further until the oil pump gear slot is properly aligned once installed?

Thank you again

-kiyoshi

The BEST way is to bump the engine and look for compression (with your finger) on no1 hole. If you have both valve covers off, examine both no1 and no6 valves and determine which pairs are closed. On a new engine with hydraulic lifters not yet fully pumped up, it can be tricky just looking at valves.

IF IF the drive tang is "where it belongs, the drive gear slot points to the driver side front manifold to head bolt. If the tang is different, you will either have to use a different cap tower for no1 or rotate the intermediate gear. You can walk it "up" out of the cam by twisting with a screwdriver
 
It appears you have it all set up, just that the slot in the intermediate shaft is pointing more towards 3-5, than 1.

I find if I use two screwdrivers I can get the shaft to walk up and off the cam gear. But if I'm not mistaken it's easier to turn it counterclockwise and go nearly half way around. Like said above, you'll need to account for the amount of "shift" or "turn" as the shaft goes back down on the cam gear.

With the distributor installed, confirm the rotor is pointing to the cap tower that connects the plug wire to number 1. Then confirm clockwise is 18436572. After that, start that puppy up!!!
 
Distributor drive slot needs to point to front intake manifold bolt on driver's side.

#1 cylinder up on compression stroke, TDC.

20220507_170122.jpg

Take a big flat blade screw driver and turn the drive gear clockwise while lifting up. Go a little past then drop it in till it lines up with the front intake bolt.
 
Ok so, I believe I have the oil pump shaft indexed properly now. Only a couple things left:

1. Regarding the shaft of the distributor, the slot on the bottom of the shaft is just out of alignment with the plastic post up top. I tried to picture this in the second and third photo. Is this an issue? I pictured how the distributor currently sits with the updated indexed oil pump gear.

2. If all seems correct, I'm worried the owner before me marked the distributor cap incorrectly or maybe I'm not understanding something? Obviously once the distributor shaft "-" lined in the oil pump gear slot, the top wouldn't really be able to be changed, but I can of course still rotate the distributor itself around the shaft 360 degrees. How do I know how to properly index the distributor regarding what everyone was pointing out in the start of the thread with the vacuum advance being clocked in a funny location?

Let me know if yall need a photo of the cap too

-kiyoshi

2.1.jpg


2.2.jpg


2.3.jpg


2.4.jpg
 
Point the vacuum can so it's towards the passenger fender.

You might want to turn the drive gear one more tooth to get rotor pointing more towards cylinder #1.
 
Look at the rotor and the tang on the drive shaft. They are pointing in different directions.

This is an example of when you can NOT use the factory service manual.

You need to set the drive gear so that when the rotor is pointing where you want it that drive slot in the gear is point the right direction. Where you have the slot now won’t work.
 
Super Simple version.
Put engine on No 1 TDC
Drop in dizzy
Whichever pole in the cap the rotor button is pointing to, is the pole you put your No1 spark lead onto.
 
Post 34 is how the cars came out of the factory. The picture of post 37 is how it should look when done correctly. This allows the vacuum can to rotate to its proper position without hitting the intake manifold [on some manifolds]. Snug down the distributor clamp bolt so you can rotate the distributor when the engine fires up.

George Jets; sweet looking engine!

All factory LA small blocks distributors have the shaft tang and the rotor offset by about 15 degrees.
 
Alright so I had it at an unconfirmed tdc, when I went to spin it, the #1 piston intake valve started to compress down/ open. Looking closer on the timing marks on the pulley itself, it listed "v8" for that set of marks that was being used, and was the only line marked white and the only line with the side touching the block. All the other timing lines were on the opposite side of the pulley, if that makes sense

I continued to spin the crank until back at tdc marking on the pulley again. Where I'm at, I have spun one full tdc from initially pictured where intake valve opened next, both valves currently seem closed, piston #1 is at top of travel, and again oil pump shaft appears to be indexed incorrectly

Is this correct? The fix would be to simply spun the oil pump shaft with the proper hex just a little further until the oil pump gear slot is properly aligned once installed?

Thank you again

-kiyoshi
Dude you are making this far to difficult, this should be easy.
To find TDC on cylinder number 1 follow what I told you in post #10.
Dont read to much in to this.
Keep it simple
 
Post 34 is how the cars came out of the factory. The picture of post 37 is how it should look when done correctly. This allows the vacuum can to rotate to its proper position without hitting the intake manifold [on some manifolds]. Snug down the distributor clamp bolt so you can rotate the distributor when the engine fires up.

George Jets; sweet looking engine!

All factory LA small blocks distributors have the shaft tang and the rotor offset by about 15 degrees.


I understand all that. But the factory assumes the rotor and the drive tang are parallel to each other. Clearly the OP’s rotor and tang are not parallel.

All that matter is where the rotor points when the distributor is in. That means you clock the drive gear according to the rotor offset and stop trying to set the drive gear like the book says.

This isn’t nearly this hard.
 
Yeah I tend to over-complicate things in relation to over-worrying lol, thank you though everyone. I'll do what you mentioned today and get back with the results. I realized the question of the order on the dizzy cap was dumb after posting being that like what bakerlite said, wherever it lands, make that 1 and go from there

lol thank you for bearing with me everyone, I really appreciate the patience

-kiyoshi
 
straight edge was a little off, was hard to get in the bay but looked as close as I could get it (was going degrees of a turn with the hex oil pump priming tool to try to get it to align as best as possible to driver front intake bolt)

reclocked distributor, this is what everyone is referring to regarding vacuum port position, correct?

engine is at comp tdc as per post #10 instructions, distributor at post 1 (cap is marked incorrectly as "5" but is the one I'm pointing to)

will route wires accordingly (18436572) and will fire it up

-kiyoshi

4.1.jpg


4.2.jpg


4.3.jpg
 
Post 34 is how the cars came out of the factory. The picture of post 37 is how it should look when done correctly. This allows the vacuum can to rotate to its proper position without hitting the intake manifold [on some manifolds]. Snug down the distributor clamp bolt so you can rotate the distributor when the engine fires up.

George Jets; sweet looking engine!

All factory LA small blocks distributors have the shaft tang and the rotor offset by about 15 degrees.
No, they do not. You need to re-read this thread. Some of the guys on here, like Crackedback, know a thing or two. "If I must" I will go out and spend an hour in the shed digging up at least enough distributors to prove that point
 
straight edge was a little off, was hard to get in the bay but looked as close as I could get it (was going degrees of a turn with the hex oil pump priming tool to try to get it to align as best as possible to driver front intake bolt)

reclocked distributor, this is what everyone is referring to regarding vacuum port position, correct?

engine is at comp tdc as per post #10 instructions, distributor at post 1 (cap is marked incorrectly as "5" but is the one I'm pointing to)

will route wires accordingly (18436572) and will fire it up

-kiyoshi

View attachment 1715924300

View attachment 1715924301

View attachment 1715924302

That's all well and good, but what you describe does not "time" the engine, really. You have got the dist in "close" IF you got the engine up on compression. Did you do that? Now go a step further and put it in TIME.

When you installed the dist, you "could" or "should" have brought the engine up on compression, then bumped it until the marks ARE NOT AT TDC but rather 'where you want the timing,' in other words bring the marks up to 10 or 15BTDC or wherever you want initial timing.

Now, with the no1 tower identified, rotate the dist body CW (retard) and slowly rotate it back CCW (advanced) until the points "break" open, or, if breakerless, to where the reluctor is about in the middle of the pickup coil. YOU CAN ALSO check timing "on the starter" (I "used to know that" but Crackedback reminded me, a few years back)

When you time the engine in this way, you don't have to "screw" with it, crank endlessly, etc. You prime it with a little fuel and START IT UP

If you do that right, it will fire just like it was parked overnight
 
That's all well and good, but what you describe does not "time" the engine, really. You have got the dist in "close" IF you got the engine up on compression. Did you do that? Now go a step further and put it in TIME.

When you installed the dist, you "could" or "should" have brought the engine up on compression, then bumped it until the marks ARE NOT AT TDC but rather 'where you want the timing,' in other words bring the marks up to 10 or 15BTDC or wherever you want initial timing.

Now, with the no1 tower identified, rotate the dist body CW (retard) and slowly rotate it back CCW (advanced) until the points "break" open, or, if breakerless, to where the reluctor is about in the middle of the pickup coil. YOU CAN ALSO check timing "on the starter" (I "used to know that" but Crackedback reminded me, a few years back)

When you time the engine in this way, you don't have to "screw" with it, crank endlessly, etc. You prime it with a little fuel and START IT UP

If you do that right, it will fire just like it was parked overnight


Thank you for this as well, I was looking in to some other videos regarding small block mopar timing etc and came across these exact tips as well regarding finding exactly where the points break, as well as setting initial to maybe 10ish btdc for a smoother initial start.

I haven't cranked yet so let me get to 10 degrees btdc of timing on the compression stroke, confirm the point break position, and go from there. Thank you again immensely for this crash course

-kiyoshi
 
No, they do not. You need to re-read this thread. Some of the guys on here, like Crackedback, know a thing or two. "If I must" I will go out and spend an hour in the shed digging up at least enough distributors to prove that point

Note that the two distributors shown above have the rotor and the tang offset by 15 degrees. I also measured an old points distributor I had lying around ---- 15 degree offset too.

I know there are many sharp people on this site.
 
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