Jim Riccobene

thank you in advance for any advise.
I purchased a 86 cutlass salon that had been sitting since 2006 put a battery in it and it cranked right up drove it home and being a new car to me i performed a complete tune up on it new wires , cap , rotor ,plugs even replace the hei module but not the capacitor. now the engine cranks but wont run Ive checked the firing order and i have it wire right . Now inside the dist. there is dry rotted plastic or Bakelite and the thermals that are connected to the hei module are exposed . i did change the capacitor was short the 10 bucks it cost . i pulled the #1 plug and checked for fire i have fire it is orange in color shouldn't it be white in color . So could my distributor be bad do to sitting for 11 years and that hei connector casing is dry rotted and cracked exposing the terminals . I check the position of my rotor on a compression stroke and it is sitting close to the # 1 tower on the cap . my last question is did olds produce the plactic coated timing gear in the 86 5.0 ?
this car not running is baffling me please advise asap

76olds

If I understand what you are saying, it ran OK until you drove it home parked it. It was only until you put the "NEW" parts in that you discovered a no start condition.
Are you sure that nothing is being left out prior to the no-start stated above? Such as pulling the distributor out of the engine?

Eric

CRUZN 66

Welcome to the site... How many miles are on the vehicle? The cam timing gear is a nylon gear...

oldcutlass

Welcome to the site, can you put the old parts back in the distributor.

Jim Riccobene

The after i did the basic tune up i tried to start it and it would crank and back fire up the carburetor i did find i had 2 wires crossed i corrected that cranked it still no start , that's when i went deeper into the distributor and removed the hei module and took it over to autozone and had them perform a test on it , and it did fail the test they performed and i purchased a new one . Now when i was removing the old one is when i discovered the dry rotted terminal cover, now the top of the terminal cover was broken off the bottom of that cover is still intact and i reinstalled the 2 wires onto the module and applied the die electric grease on the back of the module and reattached the other 2 terminals on the opposite end the 2 plugs on the 4 prongs side the side with the plastic top cover missing is the side with just 2 terminals . if you were holding it up its sorta curved in shape the 2 single terminals on the left side of the module i plugged them back on and laying the bottom piece of plastic back in the distributor to ensure they would not make contact with the metal base of the distributor installed the 2 hold down screws reinstalled the rotor button and cap , please do keep in mind like i stated before i did not purchase a new capacitor due to i just didn't have that 10 dollars for that part at the point of purchase of the hei module i know i should replace it and intend to now next trip to the part store . OK so i got everything back together and cranked the motor and it turns but now its not even backfiring at all anymore . i did loosen the distributor hold down bolt so i could move it some but did not pull it out of the motor and reinstall . keep in mind i checked to see if the #1 cylinder was up on a compression stroke and the rotor buttom is farly in the correct position in the #1 cap tower . the reason i loosened the hold down bolt was to maybe dial it in a bit better because before i did the tune up it did have a bit of post ignition when i shut her down last . so does this help you to understand better what is going on i hope so . thank you for replying to my post. i am at wits end with this situation and i just want to get her running again so i can continue making other repairs that are needed on the car like replacing the rotors and flexible rubber brake lines for they are dry rotted but not leaking yet but i know they will if i don't replace them soon . Btw the odometer reads 170 k miles on it if it has that plastic tooth timing sprocket on it im going to do the timing chain with the next chunk of money i can throw at it i know it will crack and skip time next if i don't.

76olds

Jim,
Could you post a pic of the engine with where you are at currently? Also a pic under your cap with the rotor taken off would help after the initial picture.
Is it the chev 305 ?

Thanks
Eric

oldcutlass

Confirm whether you have spark. Follow the manufacturers timing procedure. have an assistant crank the engine with your timing light hooked up and set your timing to 16* BTDC. If you have fuel and spark it should start. Once its running double check timing again.

Jim Riccobene

Jim Riccobene

other pictures coming soon eric thanks for your interest in helping me

76olds

Thanks for posting the pics Jim, You have the Olds 307 engine.
Is your number 1 plug wire on the rear right driver side terminal? With number 8 to the left rear terminal? I think that is the way I'm seeing the pics.
Is the rotor facing the back right # 1 terminal with #1 piston a TDC?
I see the plastic coating you were talking about, I'm wondering if you have a bit of arching going on under the cap with them open. It looks like it could be arching a bit looking at the connections in the pic, I would wrap some electrical tape around the connection for now.
Also, take the plastic twist ties off the wires and separate them a bit, that may give you a bit of a miss, even thou the wires are new.
If you don't have a timing light, to try and bring the timing in like Oldcutlass mentioned , have someone crank the engine over while you try to turn the distributor to get it to start. I would start turning counter clock wise a little each time. If it doesn't catch the go clockwise. I looks like you have turned it clockwise to me when you loosened and turned it , Am I correct with this thought??
As long as your #1 is correct with the #1 piston I think it should start. I hope others chime in here, since its not the CCC carb, it should be fairly straight forward.
You didn't pull the distributor so you can't be far off the mark.

Eric

oldcutlass

In order to adjust the timing you need to jumper the A/B terminals in the connector under the dash. Read this:
http://performanceolds307.tripod.com/id4.html