Hey guys,

I finally got tired of my ride having little fluid "accidents" wherever I parked it - I decided to do a complete teardown on the top end, replace all the gaskets, inspect the heads, valves, lifters, cylinders, pistons etc. All looked good, and after about 14 hours (3 of which spent getting the damn exhaust to line back up to the header flanges) she's back together again.

I was very careful to label everything so I wouldn't have issues putting it back together, since this was my first real top end teardown and I didn't want to bork it up.

Now my problem/question -

I've checked, double checked and triple checked to make sure every connection is on - all good, however can't get her to fire up. Carb has gas going to it, oiling system working - but I can't get her to fire up. I thought maybe I had the distro 180 deg backwards, so I spun it 180 and still no love. The distribution system is all MSD (distributer, control box, little spark canister thingy) and I dunno if that's my problem or not. At one point the carb did fireball up when I was working on gettnig it started, so that at least tells me that there's a spark in there somewhere

Any advice?

oh, and 1 quick question, that I can't seem to find covered in search here, or in my chiltons - when I spin the distributer 180 degrees, should I be pulling it up so it's no longer engaged on the oil pump? Or should I just be spinning it? or does it not even matter?


Thanks for the help guys!

 

The "typical" way of turning the distributor 180 degrees is to remove the clamp, pull up on the body (which will turn the rotor as the cam gear disengages), then turn the rotor 180 degrees and drop the body back down.

FWIW, it's the oil pump that disengages.

I would suggest you pull the spark plugs, disconnect the coil power wire, and turn the engine over several times to clear any gas that may have built up. Make sure the spark plugs are dry, too. At what point did the fireball occur, before or after you turned the distributor 180 degrees?

How confident are you that you adjusted the valves properly?

 

she's runnin now.

Problem with working on a car for 14 hours straight is you tend to forget things - like turning over the crankshaft to grab a leaf that somehow managed to blow in throught he window of the garage and fall to the bottom of #6...

So all my precise markings for the distro cap were outa whack. anyway, what I did to fix it was -

1) Got the engine on top dead center (did it the "for sure way" and pulled the valve cover off the driver side and watched for #1 intake valve to close then just lined up the mark on the damper to TDC)

2) pulled the distro out and relocated it between where #1 and #8 spark plug wire caps are.

3) Put cap back on

4) Started her up, adjusted timing and hit the road for 2 blocks before the throttle cable came loose (ahhh, nothing like working out bugs on a car LOL)


Anyway, it wasn't anything too serious, just a lapse of memory causing my own marks to be innacurate. Thanks for the response tho

 

Also happens when it's been 14 days between working on it.

Glad to hear you got it running. I double-checked the engine position before installing, had to turn it over to get the torque converter bolts in, turned it back the other way to get back to #1 TDC. With all of the reports of 180 degree distributors lately, I was sure glad to hear it fire up once fuel got up to the carb.