Limit total advance???

[azfordman]

I got around to pulling the distributor on the car apart yesterday....what a pain! Between trying to get that tiny clip out and trying to get it reinstalled...I am not sure which was more difficult! Also, when trying to reinstall the clip, it shot out and disappeared into oblivion...luckily I had the one from the old distributor.... Everything on the bottom end of the cars distributor seemed to be in tact an operational, albeit a bit dry, so I greased it all up. I went ahead and used the 16 slot to try to reduce the amount of overall timing...seemed easier and smarter than trying to weld the larger slot. Finally got it all back together and.......the car would not start!!! Was out there until midnight or so messing with it. Everything seemed fine, fuel, spark, timing marks lined up, etc...but no life to the engine. Sitting in my room this morning the problem hit my like a ton of bricks........



Do you see what I saw?????

Went out this morning pulled the distributor out and rotated the shaft 180 degrees.... Voila!!! She fires to life! Flipping the advance plate around to change the mechanical advance was mentioned in several of the articles, but no one ever mentioned it throwing off the position of the rotor, very frustrating indeed! Also, the vacuum advance that came off the old distributor had around half the movement of the one on the car, so I put that on as well. I cannot say the car is running "better"...but it is running different. Seems to have lost a little pick up off the bottom end, but it does come to life now in the top end.....the one time I really got on it the rear end broke loose shifting into 3rd and 4th gear....had never done that before. I think it will take some more carb adjusting to get a little more pick up on the bottom end. Sorry about the long winded post, just wanted to share my experience. Mark