Ok so I'm in the middle of replacing several things and without going into the long back story, the camshaft is one of the necessary components being replaced....
I've never been into a motor this far (as some of you already know) and so I want to be sure to do everything right....
I didn't set to TDC when pulling dizzy because my intention was to do intake and valve cover gaskets and put it back together and go about my merry way so I marked rotor and dizzy housing in relation to each other and the block and just pulled it.....
Found some wear on cam gear at dizzy and in the process of learning and doing, I pulled the timing set off, then decided to try to run some flush through the motor.... then I turned the crank.....
Then it hit me that I
had changed the relation of alignment between crank and cam shaft gears....
So now I'm trying to figure out what to do to get that back into proper alignment....
Can I:
1) remove timing chain from timing set
2) get crank at TDC,
3) then get gears dot to dot somehow?
In amongst this, where should damper mark be at and when?
Or what is the correct move?
I'm not sure how to proceed.
Thank you guys for past and future advice and patience with a rookie
Before you pull a dist always always set
Number 1 at TDC.
If you look at the end of your distributor you will see the "TAB" that engages with the oil pump drive.
What happens when you pull a distributor is that tab disengages from the oil pump before the gear stops turning the rotor.
That is how you end up one tooth off when you restab it.
The marks you made dont line up when you get it seated because the oil pump drive is not in the same place.
Back when we ran points you could just drop it in and aim for the left headlight and adjust it.
That dont work at all on a tbi.
Base timing is everything. The ecm controls timing advance and retard and being one tooth off has a downrange effect that is likely beyond the parameters of that system and you will chase your tail forever.
The only tool you need to re-stab a chevy distributor is an about two foot long standard screwdriver.
Long enough to get down into the oil pump drive.
Turn the oil pump about 10 degrees counter- clockwise or so and drop it in.
The best thing you can do for yourself in order to keep your sanity and too do things in a systematic order is to establish "Base knowledge"
if you are in doubt, pull the valve covers,
Pull the plugs, back off the rockers and pull the pushrods.
Mark them. they need to go back in the same place they came from.
Good time to inspect them anyway .
The gear marks should be dot to dot.
When you rotate the crank 180 degrees the cam dot should still line up with the crank dot but it will be on the top of the cam turn instead of in the middle
it should still line up for each 180 turn..
That is just different valves opening at tdc.
Once you have that base knowledge and you know that that is all working.
That means ypu can check it off of your list and move on to the next possibility.
The design of this system started in the early 1980s and it is all "flow chart" logic and diagnosis.
If, yes, no then
IYNT.
So if we set up a flow chain for your distributer.
Did you pull the dist?
Yes.
Did you set it at Tdc?
no
Two very rapidly diverging chains of logic paths.
Compare it too..
Did you pull the dist?
Yes.
Do the timing marks line up?
No.
Is it popping and farting and runs like untuneable poo?
Did you set it to TDC on number 1?
Yes.
Is the dist still at number one on the ignition stroke?
Yes.
They were built with flow chart logic and you can repair them with flow chart logic.
Dont give up. It takes somewhat of a deep dive into ancient technollogy but when you get it figurred out you own the last generation of truck that is truley independant from tech and has no gps no tracking nothing..
You can just get in it a drive...
You can engine swap it in a truck stop parking lot.
Our trucks are the last of that freedom folks.
Learn it all while you still can and pass it on to your kids.
Twenty years from now if it takes that long we will have to get a state permit to operate a gas vehicle.
So we are just gonna sit around and try to schedule some mass transit electric soy bean car and hope it shows up when are in the middle of having a stroke and hope that it doesnt arrive with a dead hooker in it.
Cuz nothing ******* screwy will ever happen in those cars right?
We have a bunch of bike share companies in Seattle.
They are everywhere.
Maybe its just me..
But there is no way in flying **** that I am sitting my butt on some seat that has been through several hundred nasty sweaty ass cracks.
How in the flying **** do they not understand how venerial disease spreads through bicycle seats that they have to wear friggen moon suits when they change them?
Ill leave you with my anti-theft solution that I learned from Dad way back in the 70s.
Somebody tried to steal my wifes car a couple of times last week.
They came back early this morning but I was readdy for the *****.
An ass sized sheet of 1/2 inch plywood with about 30 3/4 drywall screws through it.
Covered it with some foam and slid it under the seat cover.
The ****** is lucky as hell that my wife talked me out covering the spikes with cat turds.
I was trying to figure out a way to coat them with some kind of stable LSD becuase I really really wanted to see a car thief tripping balls with a sheet of plywood stuck to his ass.
He may come back but it is sure as **** gonna take awhile.
Hopefully, it gets infected and he dies a slow painfull death.
******* theives.