Simon928

Well, I've had a little more time to work on my engine rebuild since the kid was born, and I got to the point where I tried to start it up. It wouldn't start, and it was backfiring in the spider area. My belt timing is dead on, and I confirmed that I have fuel and spark, but since there was backfiring something had to be off timing-wise. My cap and plugs were on correctly, but the rotor wasn't pointing to cylinder 1, so I'm assuming that this is the problem (or at least one of them) causing my non-start.

My questions are, how do I go about changing the position of the rotor? And which end is supposed to be pointing to cylinder 1? The end that's currently pointing to the 7 o'clock position? I've never taken this apart before so I want to tread carefully.

j.kenzie@sbcglobal.net

your rotor looks OK. There is a small groove in the edge of the distributor body where the rotor should point to. I don't see it anywhere else, so I bet it is under the rotor, as it should be. it's under the cover for the lower chamber.
Good luck,
Dave

Mrmerlin

the rotor should point to the hash mark when the crank and cams are at TDC.
NOTE there are 2 marks here,
a square type for lining up the inner cap cover,
and the small cut,
the small cut is the hash mark.
Note the cut in the shaft is also where the rotor will be pointing when its installed,
and thus this distributor isnt lined up with the hash mark.

Note disregard the points your distributor has an electronic ignition.

To move the rotor you would remove the 13mm nut thats holding the distributor housing ,
NOTE mark the housing to the base first then pull the distributor out ,
note how the rotor spins a bit,
reposition the rotor to account for the spin it makes,
and install it,
a few tries should have the rotor pointing at the hash mark.

All this said if the cam and distributor housing have not been removed only a new belt installed then this relationship should not have changed and instead you have miswired the cap or the plugs

Simon928

Thanks for the input! I checked, and there is a small groove where the cylinder 1 plug is, but the rotor definitely isn't pointed to it, so it looks like I'll have to reposition it. This wasn't just a belt job--I had the entire engine apart in order to replace the head gaskets and all of the other gaskets and seals in between. I didn't realize that I had to redo the timing belt when I started this job so it wasn't at TDC when I took off the cam gears. I obviously put the belt back on at TDC, but to do so I had to manually rotate the cam gears in order to align them properly with the pointers on the cams. Could that have led to the distributor being pointed in the wrong way? Either way, it's definitely wrong and I'll get that adjusted the next time I can get into the garage.

Also, one of the plug wires seems to have come out of it's connector. Is it okay to just slide it back in, or do I have to do something special to make it work properly?

Thanks again for all of your help!

Mrmerlin

that wire connector is toast,
you can stick a screwdriver into the brass fitting inside the boot and unscrew the brass fitting ,

you will then see how the wire was crimped into the screw portion,
and the center of the wire has broken off in it or has come out of it.

Follow the above instructions for repositioning the rotor,
you will want the leading edge of the rotor to be lining up with the hash mark ,
of course turn the engine in the direction of operation to see the direction that the rotor turns.

depami

When you turn the crank/cams separately with the distributor in place it's easy to end with the distributor 180 out.

Just pull it out and turn one tooth at a time until it's correct. Be sure to mark housing first to maintain correct final orientation.

WallyP

A very important point:

The rotor must point at the mark on the distributor body when the engine is at Top Dead Center Compression. Just TDC is not sufficient! You must make sure that the crank dampener is at TDC and the cam sprockets must be aligned with the timing marks.

depami

As always, good advice from Mrmerlin.

With vacuum advance distributors it's easy to tell direction as vacuum arm points in direction of rotation.

These guys must be Chevy mechanics, they pick their own number one because they don't know how to index the distributor......

Simon928

Thanks everyone! I got the rotor pointing the right way and it starts up immediately, but it runs really rough and then dies shortly thereafter, so my guess is that I have a vacuum leak. I guess I'll chase that down when I get some more spare time. When I take everything in the engine apart, I guess it's inevitable that I messed something up.

Mrmerlin

you may have a fueling issue after it stalls spray a squirt of ether into the intake and crank it this will tell if you have lost fuel or spark