[patrickt]

OK, since you now know where on your balancer TDC is located, let's just do a "double check" to be absolutely sure. Pull the spark plug out of the #1 cylinder hole and put your stick back in its place. Place a little piece of duct tape on the side of your distributor directly under the location of the #1 plug wire. Now remove the distributor cap, leave the rotor in place, and rotate the engine via the crank bolt. You should see the stick coming up out of the #1 cylinder as the piston is pushing it up. At the same time, you should also see the balancer begin to get closer to the TDC location. Also at the same time you should see the rotor begin to get closer to the duct tape that marks the #1 plug wire. When the stick is at it's highest point out of the hole, and your balancer says you're at TDC, then the rotor should be pretty darn close to the duct tape. It doesn't have to be perfect, we're just checking to make sure it's not way, way way off. If the rotor is pointing to the other side of the distributor, away from the duct tape, then you've found your problem.