So tomorrow I am going to put on a new distributor cap/rotor/plugs/points. I got to wondering while browsing the manual today, how accurate are the plug number locations they show on the dist cap?

What I mean is, they show plug #8 over the edge of the dwell adjusting door, on my car that is plug #1. They are all in the correct order, just shifted one tower over counter-clockwise from what the manual shows.

When reassembling, should I set up the new cap like the old one, or move it over where the image shows and see what happens? Not sure of the history of the car, maybe that's really where plug #1 needs to be to time correctly. The car behaves alright for the most part. Hard cold start sometimes. Timing seems ok, set at 8 deg BTDC.

Thanks for any input...

Dist.jpg

 

Lets put it this way, if you do put #8 plug where you have #1 then you will have to rotate the whole of the distributor that much to get it back in time.
My hunch is that your distributor was pulled at some point and was dropped in 1 or 2 teeth off. It's not hurting anything because the distributor has no clue where it is.
So long as you have enough room to move the distributor to time it properly it really doesn't matter where the wires are so long as they are in the correct order.

 

Or, to put it another way, it all depends on where you want your vacuum advance diaphragm to be. If it's in the wrong place, it will hit stuff when you try to rotate the distributor to set the timing.

- Eric

 

Let's put it this way. The service books were published by Engineering and Service with dealer service techs in mind and are written for things that are as they should be. So with very rare exceptions, what's in the book is what is correct for stuff that has not been monkeyed with.

In your case, if the car is running well, you need to put the wires back on the exact same tower they came off of. That distributor has obviously been out of the engine and then reinstalled incorrectly at some point.

 

Ok thanks, that's what I am gonna do, put it back how it is. I figured something had been changed causing it to need to sit this way, since the car is time-able and runs pretty good.