Hello my friend at work has a 69 Mustang with a 69 351 windsor. Rebuilt engine. The problem it runs rough and when I checked the timing on it you cannot line the mark on the harmonic balancer to the tab which is bolted on the right side of the engine. I noticed the distributer was wired as number 1 from the front of the distributer. All pics I see show the dist wired number 1 from the back side.

Questions.... what side of the engine should the timing tab be on, the left or right? I have seen pics of both.

Should it matter where the dist is wired from, as long as piston #1 is at TDC and the timing marks line up you just have the rotor pointing to #1 wire on the dist that goes to the #1 spark plug right?

 

Doesn't matter as long as it lines up when the piston is at TDC.

Yeah that's right, and I'll add that cyl #1 is passenger side front and they're numbered 1-4 front to back on the pass side and 5-8 front to back on the drivers side.

 

Thanks for the reply, here is the one big problem, with a timing light the mark on the harmonic balancer is at the top center, if you turn the distributer either way the engine dies. That tells me the dist wasnt dropped in right. I plan on turning the crank to line up the marks and see if the #1 piston is at TDC. If not I will put the piston at TDC then make sure the lines line up and drop the dist back in with the rotor pointing at the # 1 wire going to spark plug #1.

 

Yeah it's pretty easy to stab it 180deg off so give that a try.

 

Timing pointer is on left side of engine. From the point of view of a person standing in front of the car looking at the engine, it will be on his right, at about the one o'clock position.

The pointer for this engine is a steel stamping, held on by one small self tapping screw and one timing cover bolt.

As the engine was rebuilt, does it still have the original damper? It should be a three bolt style, with C9OE cast into it.

Possible causes of incorrect timing readings are:

The damper locating key was not reinstalled.

The outer ring of the harmonic damper has slipped over the years.

An incorrect replacement timing cover, pointer or damper was installed during the rebuild.

The timing chain was installed out of time.

A timing light with an adjustable advance was used, and it is not set at "0".

The spark plug wire at the front of the distributor (above the vacuum advance) is for cylinder 5. This is the front cylinder on the left side of the engine (your right if viewing from the front of car). Double check the cylinder number cast into the intake manifold runner to make sure you aren't confusing #1 cylinder with #5 cylinder.