[COBALT]

Do you smell coolant in the cab while the engine is running? Your heater core may be leaking, and then evaporating the fluid giving you this sweet smell inside the cab especially. If you want to know how it would smell take a tiny bit of coolant and drop it on an exhaust manifold and take a whiff. If you have that smell in the cab then you're burining coolant off your core.

Air bubbles in the radiator indicate combustion gasses in coolant or an air leak somewhere. This could be anything from a leaking head gasket (not blown but leaking enough to allow exhaust gasses get in the coolant) to a leaking intake manifold where the combustion charge is getting into the coolant (but you'd be burning coolant as well).

When you fill your radiator it's always a good idea to leave the top radiator hose disconnected at the thermostat housing while you fill until coolant starts to appear around the thermostat. Then, reconnect. This helps get the air out of the system.

As for the timing the first thing to do is what Chevy Wrench suggested: get TDC figured out, align the distributor, and get that balancer fixed. If you fart around with the distributor without knowing where TDC is on the #1 cylinder you're just wasting time.

Also, get an indicator put on the chain cover. so you can see what the hell you're doing. This may require you to pull the timing chain cover, but since you don't know where TDC is anyway you might as well check. There should be marks on the sprocket and the chain to indicate correct alignment. You may find out that's goofed up too. If it is fix it.

Timing for your motor should be somewhere around 10-14 degrees from TDC counterclockwise from 12 O'clock and not the other way unless you need to retard your timing due to your cam. I have to advance mine, so mine is set to 14 degrees to the left of 0 for the best performance for my puny 350 heads and stock cam. Either way the best way to start setting your timing is with the balancer mark at 0 degrees and work from there.