Searched and found tons of good info, but hoped to get some opinions based on my current situation.

69 Hurst Olds that I am doing some cleanup on. Car ran OK, but it has been sitting for a good while. Has a pertronics module.

I put a new cap, rotor, and coil. Coil looked like it could’ve been the original?

Anyway, I initially didn’t move the distributor thinking it ran good enough that I’d be able to use where it was as a starting point. But when I put the wires back on and tried to start the car, it wouldn’t fire.

Did the usual troubleshooting steps and decided it had to be a timing issue. Loosened the distributor and my friend cranked it over while I played with the distributor. I turned it clockwise almost 45 degrees from where it originally was and the car started right up. The initial timing had to be pretty far advanced to keep running.

Now the car starts right up, idles fine and the timing is steady. I test drove the air and it’s just flat. Has no power, doesn’t stumble or miss or backfire. I haven’t tried to “set the tune properly on it yet.

I’m worried maybe the timing gear slipped a tooth on me? I have the thing on TDC (compression). The rotor is pointing in the general direction of the #1 plug with the timing mark at “0”, but to me it’s pointing too far past toward the front of the car. In the past, I feel like when it’s right, it’s pointing at the plug not 15-20 degrees past.

I’m inclined to move the distributor back one tooth to see if the rotor lines up better?

But that doesn’t explain why after changing the stuff I changed it was that far out of whack.

Thoughts?

Joe

 

Don’t think I explained this correctly, I double checked the rotor and it does line up with the distributor wire position just to the left of the access door.

Am going to play with the initial timing set up fresh today and see what happens.

Still not understating why everything moved almost 45 degrees on me though.....

Appreciate any feedback for sure.

Joe

 

If you did not touch the distributor, the only thing I can say is if you were 1 tower off when you transferred the wires from the old cap to the new one. Another possibility is the new cap is not seated where the old cap was.

 

Thanks for the response. I just followed the basic “tune up” steps and the car runs really good now. Thinking it could use a bit more initial but I’m going to wait until I get some new gas in this thing. Then I will put the new plugs in and dial it in better.

No clue why it was like that but it seems happy now.

Sorry for the panic attack.....

Joe