I made the mistake of pulling my Distributor out, without marking it. I am now can't find my repair manual, so i am pretty much screwed unless someone out there can help me out. Do I need to line up the markings on the fly wheel with the Distributor markings or is there another trick?

 

MY ENGINE IS: 83 Brat Automatic 4X4 1.8.

 

Any help or photos would be greatly appricated:confused:

This is what I do:

 

Turn the motor by hand until you reach TDC on the flywheel. Observe the general location of #1 on the distributor cap so that you can get the rotor somewhat lined up. Then slide it in - note the rotation of the rotor as you slide the distributor in. It is easy to be a tooth off one way or the other, but not too tough to figure it out.

 

Once you've got it in, try to set the timing to whatever spec you want (factory?). If you have to turn the distributor a lot in one direction or the other, then most likely you are a tooth off. If you are, pop it out a tiny bit and turn the rotor in the direction you need to go.

 

It's not that tough, just might take a couple of tries. The engine most likely will not even fire up if you've got it wrong - take this as a positive thing - if it runs, you're probably not far off and can just set the timing. Hope you've got a light...

VooDOO

Art missed one little thing. The engine must have number 1 on it's compression stroke for you to do this.

Number one cyl. is the front cyl on the pass. side (speaking American here)

Place a ball of cotton or such over the no.1 spark plug hole as you rotate the engine, if the cotton "pops" out you are on compression (you could try to hold your thumb or other diget over the hole)

Now line up the timing mark for TDC or "0 deg"

The rotor will turn as you put the dist. in, so turn the rotor back before inserting so that when the dist. is seated the rotor points at the number one spark plug tower. (you could mark the dist. housing before hand as to where the number 1 sp.plug tower is)

Proceed as Art says

Hope this helps

Good point, Skip, thanks!

 

Will the motor run if it is 180 degrees out of phase? Or am I just getting lucky every time I have to do this - because I have never worried about it. Just turn it to the marks and go.

No Art, it will not run with the dist. 180 deg out.

As the fire in the hole would be occurring when the valves are on "rock" (one opening(intake), one closing(exhaust))

You must be lucky as it's a fifty fifty flip of the coin.

Thanks. I must be a lucky guy then!

Thanks, for all your help