Lou---The distributor drive gear will only fit in one way, as the "key"
is offset slightly biased toward the engine. If you find that your
distributor is 180 deg. out of time with #1 piston position, all is not
lost. You have at least two options here:
One is to tap out the pin that secures the gear at the bottom of the
distributor shaft and turn it 180 deg., then replace the pin. This gear
and pin bore should be dead center, so it's easy to do this. Now when
installing the dist. the rotor will be pointing at the proper sparkplug
tower.
If you're in a hurry to start the engine (after you've overhauled it)
you can simply move all of the sparkplug wire "three holes" over. This
will re-time the distributor as above, but may look a little hokey, with
the plug wires starting with #1 at one o'clock, rather than the
customary 7 o'clock.
Know that the correct position of the milled slot for the distributor
drive bushing should look like "18 minutes to two" (on the clock) when
#1 piston is at or near TDC. What you are describing is this slot
looking more like 22 minutes to two.
Write back for more info, if needed. For whatever it's worth, I found
myself with the same predicament the first time I did my own engine! I
resolved it by switching pin/gear positions.
Dick
From:
Lfm614@aol.com
Listers,
Does the distributor drive gear that engages the cam have a direction?
Let me see if I can explain this better, will the distributor drive fit
the slots in the gear at both 0 and 180 degrees? Mine seems to fit the
slots and drop down in only one direction at 180 degrees off #1 plug at
TDC which is off course wrong.
By measuring drive tabs and looking at the gear slot, it looks like it
should go in both ways 180 degrees different but mine won't. I hate to
think I put the drive gear in 180 degrees out when I rebuilt the engine,
it didn't look like it had a direction to the slot other than the 7-8
o'clock alignment that the books call for. Has anybody had this problem?
Thanks for your help,
Lou
|