New parts, now won't start

[Grumpy old man]

Originally Posted by Mrturner1

Good grief I know you're trying to help but sometimes you don't give me any credit for having listened and learned a little. I'm not just takin shots in the dark here, I've done a lot of research and reading and figured out exactly what I need and what will work best. Almost everything I read is David Vizard and I think you'll agree he's pretty awesome. The new distributor comes from the factory with very very heavy springs in it. The specs are 24 degrees all in at 4000rpm. That's too much timing and way to late for my combo to work the way it's designed to and run efficiently. The springs and weights I put in limit the mechanical timing to 22 degrees, and it's all in at 3000 rpm. This is very conservative relatively speaking, and will run 10x's better than it did out of the box. I bought this specific MSD distributor so that I could make my own timing curve because with my combo of heads cam intake and carb, the factory setting won't work.

No starter button YET, I didn't turn the motor over while doing the distributor change, and I took pictures of the rotor so I could put it back right and was only one tooth off.

Just help out in my threads instead of jumping in to EVERY single one I post and bashing me.

We're not there we only "see " what you write ,not bashing you! something that gets overlooked by many guys is what works perfect for a guy in Florida may be totally wrong for someone in Colorado , fuel type , air density ,ambient temperature , elevation all play a part in combustion. I've never heard of David vizard nor have I ever read a book on setting up an engine all my experience is hands on and seat of pants in the driver's seat evaluation . Books don't build engines they build dollars from selling books .sometimes I forget that I was lucky enough to grow up around some of the fastest most creative custom guys in the country in their day no books required . One of my high school buddies is a very sought after LS tuner based in Indianapolis and flies all over the country just to tune engines , we grew up with a distributor wrench in our back pocket and turned wrenches for a living ! experience doesn't come from a book ,we were doing engine swaps and valve jobs at 15 that was very long ago ! grab a wrench and get greasy . I play with these old trucks because they are old school muscle ,once you add computers and such they turn into late models Pm sent .

[Mrturner1]

So when I take the cap off, the rotor is pointing at #6, and the balancer is at TDC, so how can it be one or two teeth off?

[GASoline71]

Originally Posted by Grumpy old man

Don't move the wires , fix the problem .

Agreed... moving the wires around with the distributor not set right is not the way to go about it.

Get the engine up on #1 TDC. Drop in the distributor in with the rotor pointing at the #1 cylinder like you want it. It doesn't matter that the oil pump drive doesn't line up yet. Now bump the starter a couple times and when the distributor gear lines up with the oil pump, the distributor will drop in the rest of the way. Now time your engine where it needs to be. Off chance you might have to change the weights again depending on what your engine will like.

Gary

[midniteblues]

I'm with everyone else.

Get the motor back on tdc on the compression stroke and re stab the distributor.

You probably will have too turn the oil pump drive with a long screw driver. Or rotate the motor till it drops in correctly.

Then go from there. It's really the only way too go now.

[Grumpy old man]

Using a remote starter or your wife tapping the key ( that's what I call my girl , my remote starter !) , remove the #1 plug and using your finger over the plug hole tap the engine around until you feel the compression stroke coming up on that cylinder ,it will take you a time or two to get it , now you know your at tdc on #1 ,drop the distributor in with the rotor pointing at the #1 plug wire on the cap now your at least close .I wish you lived closer ,but you would go broke buying Heinekin

The reason you don't change anything on the distributor before starting the engine is YOU CANT RETURN IT , and it will run right out of the box ,possibly better than you may have thought . Always try the easy way first .

[Mrturner1]

Ok I did all that, and it's trying to start but backfiring out of the carb

EDIT

I turned the distributor a little bit counter clockwise and it fired right up. I'm warming it up now I'll report back soon

[Mrturner1]

Well I didn't have a chance to let it warm up, the wire that goes down to the starter is getting real hot and a little bit of smoke came from it along that wire holder plastic thing in the top part of the firewall. I don't see anything weird though, it's not melting on anything or grounding out from what I can see

[midniteblues]

Do yourself a favor and make these two cheap and easy too make tools, they help when working by yourself.

Using old spark plugs here.

Piston stop.
It helps you find true tdc and verifies your damper didn't slip.
Read up on how too use it.

The other with the hose helps me when working alone.
Let's you feel the air for compression stroke on tdc while your in the cab bumping the key.

One of these days I will make a bump button.

[Mrturner1]

I actually have a pretty decent piston stop I made, and by this time I've gotten really good at finding TDC and knowing when it's on compression or not. The issue I'm having now is with this wire smoking a little and getting hot

[midniteblues]

Check your grounds real good.
Be positive the block is grounded good.

[Mrturner1]

As far as I can tell everything is grounded fine.

Could it be the starter is going bad? Would that cause that one wire to get hot and smoke a little?

[Grumpy old man]

What wire ?

[Mrturner1]

Originally Posted by Grumpy old man

What wire ?

The wire that goes from the starter, over the top of the firewall to the block on the drivers side. The starter work and it fired up and was running, but that wire started to smoke a little bit so I **** it off

[Grumpy old man]

I'm not aware of a wire from the starter going to the block ?

[Mrturner1]

So I started going over some wiring diagrams that I saw member VetVette post a while back, and I was comparing it to my engine harness and noticed that I still have a bunch of wires from the old points ignition system. There was a yellow wire going from the firewall block on drivers side, to the distributor pigtail, and also over to the starter. With the old points system the yellow wire powered the start of the starter, or something like that. Point is, it's old wiring. The big purple wire going to the starter is the only one I need, and that goes to the ignition. SO, the red wire coming from the pigtail in the distributor that USED to go to the yellow wire (toast) now needs to go to a 12v keyed ignition source, which I have yet to find.

Another fire hazard avoided on the farm c10!!

Any suggestions on where to put the red wire going to the distributor would be great

[Grumpy old man]

Ok fuse block not engine block , whew ! Looks like you taped into the ignition resistance wire ,needs to be reg 12 volt in the on and start position . Best you do the Google search for a HEI wiring diagram rather than try to explain in detail .

[Mrturner1]

Originally Posted by Grumpy old man

Ok fuse block not engine block , whew ! Looks like you taped into the ignition resistance wire ,needs to be reg 12 volt in the on and start position . Best you do the Google search for a HEI wiring diagram rather than try to explain in detail .

That's how it's been wired since I got the truck believe it or not! I guess the yellow wire started getting resistance with the power from the new alternator? All I can think of. My engine bay is a lot cleaner I can say that

[Mrturner1]

Maybe it's because it sat for a week but I am noticing some smoke coming from the breather.

[Grumpy old man]

no big deal , when I sit on the couch for a week I get a little smoke out of my breather too !


You know working on these old trucks with old wiring it won't hurt anything to check your wiring connections with a multi meter to see if your getting the correct voltage to the component it's feeding .

[35boulder]

Now thats funny GOM!

[Mrturner1]

Originally Posted by Grumpy old man

no big deal , when I sit on the couch for a week I get a little smoke out of my breather too !
Nice lol


You know working on these old trucks with old wiring it won't hurt anything to check your wiring connections with a multi meter to see if your getting the correct voltage to the component it's feeding .

Multi meter is on the list of parts to get. Not sure how I got this far without one though

[Grumpy old man]

Multi meter from harbor freight are cheap like $5