I recently had to pull my valve cover to change the gasket and ended up having to pull the whole distributor out but didn't mark the position like an idiot. Can someone please tell me how to get the distributor back in the correct position.

 

use a 27mm socket to reset the engine to the last mark on the crank pulley (cyl 1 TDC), and line the notch on the distributor body to the dimple on the drive gear, and install the disty. if the car wno't run at all, then pull the distributor off, turn the engine one more FULL turn (line it up w/ the mark again), and reinstall the distributor the same way. Then use a timing light to fine-tune your base timing. Bear in mind that you might have to adjust it one tooth after installing the distributor, we did when we did my engine swap.

 

Yeah,.. what he said

But...

Remember to rotate the engine clockwise as you're facing the "front" of it ... Also, a good way to tell that #1 cylinder is not only coming up to TDC(Top Dead Center), but is also on the compression stroke (As opposed to the exhaust stroke) is to remove the #1 sparkplug, then start to thread it back in to the cylinder about 1 - 1/2 turns,.. just so it's barely started... now when you're rotating the engine clockwise and you're coming up on the timing marks on the crank pully,.. if you hear air pushing/blowing by the light threaded in sparkplug,.. you know that is the compression stroke as you wont hear anything on the exhaust stroke,..

So now that you've determined that you are on the compression stroke, line up the timing marks correctly on the crank pully and the "pointer" that sticks out from the timing belt cover (Mine is set at 20 deg BTDC - Automatic tranny) .. Once you have these marks lined up you're ready to drop the Dist. in...

The trick here is to make sure that the Rotor pickup is pointing at the Number 1 cylinders Cap pickup point (Not plug wire "tower") ... note the pic below:



See the white line that runs off the side of the cap? .. that is where the #1 pickup point is, and the the rotor pickup point should be pointing/facing directly at this mark... To find this spot, you'll need to look at the inside of the cap and trace it down from the #1 spark plug wire tower - I just drew a line from the inside of the cap all the way down the side of the cap and then across the bottom and back up the outside,.. then I made a small line on the dist. housing that you can see in the bottom of the pic - This is so you can see your line up point with the cap removed.

Did any of that make any sense?

Rick

 

I always thought that the ignition timeing was always at 20 degrees BTC. Looks like im gonna have to redo mine. The haynes manual makes it seem so difficult to do though.