new engine will not start

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ecoronado3

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Hello all, I dont post here much, but I am at my wits end and ready to burn my %$@#$%& dart now! I have a 1973 dart, just put in a new slant six, with the clifford 4 barrel intake, and two part headers. It is getting fire to all pugs, and gas to the carb. At first it was not doing anything, but someone told me new engines are hard to start and to really pump alot of gas into the intake. I did this and it started to show signs of life. It started to back fire through the carb, nothing major just small puffs, and exhuast started to come out of the headers. But that is all it would do. I decided to check the timing AGAIN and now the harmonic balancer will not turn. It is not stripped because I pulled the bolt out and all the threads are cool no broken threads or shavings of any kind. Replaced the bolt and it wont spin the balancer it just keeps spining, I dont want to stip it and have to pull the motor to re thread the balancer, any suggestions?
 
The balancer is spinning on the crank? If so it sounds like the key is missing and if its spinning I dont know how you could ever get the timing right. ?????
 
i would assume that there is a woodruff key that aligns the balancer on the crank. It keeps the balancer from spinning on the snout of the crankshaft. there should be a groove machined into that snout and a "key" that sits in there to line them both up
 
Yes, do you think it broke? I didnt feel anything it just started spinning, at first I thought the belt was slipping, but it was the bolt spinning. How can I make it work again?
 
Should look something like this:

key.gif
 
Okay, never seen that before, I thought you were talking about that nitch on the shaft the balancer slides on to.
 
are you saying that the bolt that holds the balancer on wont get tight, it just keeps spining? or are you saying the balancer is spining on the crank? If the bolt wont stop spinning then the treads have to be toast. If the balancer is spining then its missing the key. The balancer should only be able to slip on one way, there is a key that fits into a slot on the balancer, this locates it and prevents it from spining.
 
The balancer will not spin any more unless I crank it with the key on the column. The bolt is tight but wont get tight enough to spin the balancer. I pulled it out to check the threads and everything is fine threads are perfect, no broken ones or even metal shavings.
 
Every time you spin the balancer, the entire engine should turn over and vice versa. There should be NO slop once it is line up with the key on the snout of the crank and the bolt is installed. What do you mean when you say that the bolt wont get tight enough to spin the balancer?
 
Well, i put a socket over the bolt head and give it a spin with the rachet and it would spin to line up the timing marks ,(yesterday) today it feels like it is not grabbing, it is really hard to turn and the balancer does not turn only the bolt. and like I said it is not stripped. I am lost sombody help me!!!!!!!!!!! I have never seen this happen before.
 
Your not the only one thats puzzled. Do you know for sure the balancer is seated all the way? I don't know what to say to you. Maby you havent actually got it tight yet. I would say if a bolt spins the theads are gone. Sorry but I cant think of anything it could be.
 
To me, with the popping through the headers and the carb, it sounds timing related. Is the timing 180 degrees out of line? Pull #1 spark plug and get rotate the motor by hand or bump the starter until the piston is at top dead center (TDC). Look at the position of the rotor in the distributor. It should be pointing in the general direction of #1. If its pointing the opposite direction, you are 180 degrees out. Pull the distributor and reset to accurate time.

If the rotor is only off a bit, but is not pointing close to directly towards the #1 cylinder, then the distributor gear that meshes with the dizzy and the cam may be slightly out of alignment, throwing timing off just enough to prevent complete ignition and cause these symptoms. Simply pull the dizzy, use some needle nose pliers and gently wiggle the gear upwards out of its current position and set it in correctly. There should be a notch or arrow for directional purposes. Once repositioned, drop the distributor into its proper position, making sure it is in time with #1, button it up and give it a shot.

These are both two very likely causes to your no start. Let us know what your results are.
 
I stick my finger in the spark plug hole and when I feel compretion that is when you want the piston at the top.

In #1 cylinder ! That would be top dead center.
and your timing mark will be close to the timing marker.
 
ecoronado3 said:
Okay what is the dizzy?
Click to expand...

dizzy is short for distributor.

as to your problem...the balancer can only go onto the crank one way. the woodruff key, as shown in the earlier picture, insures that the balancer goes onto the crank snout only one way. if you were missing that "key" when you installed the balancer, then its time to remove the balancer and start over. the key goes into both the nick on the crank snout and the nick in the balancer center hole and holds everything in one place. since the balancer has all your timing marks on it, without the "key", the balancer could by now have rotated to ANY position relative to the position of the crank and consequently the cam. this will throw your timing completely out of wack. since you say you never saw the "key" before, what i'm inferring from your posts is that the balancer was installed without it. then, when you are bolting up the balancer, the torque required to tighten the bolt is doing nothing more than spinning the balancer around on the crank snout.

so here is the thing to do, pull the balancer off, re-install it with the woodruff key in place to lock it to the crank snout. do the steps listed above to find Top Dead Center (TDC) on #1 cylinder. at this piont you can begin to re-time the motor. once you have found TDC, then you can line up the distributor so that the rotor is pointing at #1 spark plug wire. you may have to do as stated earlier and pull the distributor gear and re-align it if you find you are off by a little bit, no big deal, just be careful as you are dealing with engine internals, don't get any crud in there and don't nick anything up too bad. once you get the distributor set right, that should get you close enough to get the motor firing, at which point you can put a timing light to it and set the timing.
good luck and let us know if you need more help!!!
-tim
 
Okay everyone thanks for all your help, it was an oring on the bottom of the distributer, took it out and the car fired right up, weird huh.
 
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