Shawnk111

Hey everyone. So I got my 1971 olds Ninety Eight running fairly well, except that I hadn't found anyone local with a dwell meter to set my points and my timing light quit working... So it ran kind of okay, but I could tell it wasn't perfect. A friend gave me a distributor that should have fit... I removed my old distributor and thought I was carful about lining it back up correctly.. well the new dist was wrong so I popped the old back in. Well obviously I had it marked wrong or something because it wouldn't start and sounded like a shotgun blowing out my exhaust lol. My buddy came over and showed/explained to me how to set the distributor correctly.

Today I rotated the engine until the timing Mark was at the 0 mark. Then I put the distributor back in so that if you are facing the car from the front, the point on the button was at about the 5oclock area. I positioned the cap so that the #1 plug wire was in the exact location as the edge of that button on the rotor.

Still won't start and now it's blowing out the carburetor lol.

So what am I doing wrong? Good news is I did find a shop who has a dwell meter and all that, and I know the guy since they get tires at my shop, he said I could just come down and use the tools which is great.... But I gotta get it to start again first so I can get it down there lol. Any help or advice you can give is appreciated!

oldcutlass

Your distributor is installed 180* out, rotate the engine and have the rotor to point at #1. Pull the distributor and rotate the rotor until it points to #6 then reinstall. It should start, you'll still need to set dwell to 30 (point gap .019) then set your timing.

Shawnk111

Okay so I've got it backwards. With the engine timing Mark at the 0° mark and the #1 cylinder at TDC, the rotor should be pointing towards the #6 spark plug? Thanks, I'll try this tomorrow

Ancient Iron

You need to get the timing mark on the vibration damper on zero with number one cylinder on the compression stroke(piston at tdc. with both valves closed). Then you drop the distributor in with the rotor pointing to number one plug wire on the distributor cap.
Then set your dwell and ignition timing.

Olds64

Shawn, instead of restabbing your distributor you can move the spark plug wires clockwise or counterclockwise around the distributor cap. Instead of 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2 you would change the spark plug wires to 8-4-3-6-5-7-2-1 or 2-1-8-4-3-6-5-7. If it still doesn't start you can keep moving the spark plug wires one terminal at a time until it does start. This will at least get you back on the road.

Also, don't use the timing mark on the harmonic balancer to set TDC. Harmonic balancers have been known to slip. Remove all the spark plugs and have a buddy rotate the engine with a wrench (or with the starter motor). Hold your thumb over the #1 spark plug hole. The compression will push against your thumb when #1 is at TDC.

oldcutlass

It takes all of 2mins to rotate the rotor 180*, way less time than to rewire the whole distributor.

oldcutlass

Just rotate the engine until the rotor points to #1 and the timing mark on the balancer is at 0. Pull the distributor and rotate the rotor 180* and it will be pointing to #6. Put the distributor back in. Don't worry about valve positions at this point because we already know where #1 is.

sysmg

Zero degrees on the balancer means that the number 1 piston is at the top. The spark plug is supposed to only fire every second time the piston comes to the top.

The piston comes to the top after driving out the exhaust and then draws back down to fill the cylinder with air/fuel mixture. Then it drives back up to compress the air/fuel mixture and close to the top the spark fires and causes the burning air/fuel to drive the piston down to the bottom. Then it goes up to drive out the exhaust.

You installed the distributor so that it fires after driving out the exhaust instead of after it compresses the mixture. Follow everyone's directions to correct the issue.

You will need a dwell/tachometer and a timing light to get it running right again.

-Stew