Crapped the bed pretty good on this one...

Tried to replace full distributor in a 1992 F150 4.9. Got ahead of myself and was learning as I went. Long story short..

matched timing up up I thought, same with the rotor. Fired it up and ran bad. Tried to pull timing and was having no luck all the while the lifter noise got worse and worse. Finally freaked out and realized a skipped a huge step in putting in the full distributor assembly pulled it out in a hurry and didn’t mark anything (rotor position, timing). The one I bought needed a longer shaft that I was supposed to knock the roll pins out of the old one and take and reinstall on the new assembly.
now I’m sure everything is off, timing rotor placement under the cap...everything. I gave up after this and called it a night. The truck will sit until I feel like messing with it.

Turning to the experts here...how do I even start to fix this mess up?

 

Remove #1 spark plug. Turn motor clockwise using wrench on the crankshaft pulley nut. Put thumb or paper in the plug hole, when it pushes paper or your finger out you are at TDC.Look at your timing marks , should be at 0 or close. Move it to 0. At the distributor , install with roter pointing at #1. Pull the spout shorting bar out. Motor should start, set your timing to 8 or 9 bdc . When set, turn off truck and reinstall the spout shorting bar. That is it in a nutshell. Question, why did the truck need a new distributor ?

 

So i ended up pulling the spark plug and doing this shortly after posting this thread. I guess i had a brain fart and we just irritated about my lack of concentration on this project and it came to me how to figure out #1 cylinder and getting the rotor back in line. I got the truck to fire and run and it has a slight miss as it did before so in the big scheme of things i did a lot of work to not break it anymore than it already was. Setting and checking timing is my next diy project i'll try to tackle and learn in the driveway.

I'm fairly certain i didn't need a new distributor set up, i ordered a complete one while stuck at work working 43 straight days at the refinery and figured i'd try to change it out instead of the just the stator. was it a smart move? no, but i didn't want to try to dismantle the full distributor myself which is stupid of me because it wouldn't have been that hard to do. lesson learned.

As far as the timing i'm having a tough time as i've never had to try to adjust it before. I see a notch cut out of the pully and i marked that assuming its supposed to be what i mark for my timing marks but i cant seem to even see the white marks when i used my timing light to try to get to adjust it with the distrubutor.

I did all this becasueI have had the Rumble strips curse with this truck since i bought it. At 55-60mph it sounds like i'm running over warning bumps until i let off the gas for a sec. it will also sometimes do it at around 35mph. this is all at a constant speed not during acceleration but just cruising. I've pulled codes and changed or tested whatever it threw at me from a new VSS, new MLPS, new plugs, new wires, new cap and rotor and now new full distributor and i'm doing whatever i can to try and get this to go away before giving in a calling it a bad TC. I just dont think its in the trans.

 

The cut out is not the timing mark. The actual mark almost looks like a small scratch in that pulley. I used some white crayons to mark it . Otherwise I would have had a tough time seeing it with the light.

 

Oh no! Well live and learn I guess. Glad I didn’t start trying to adjust anything just yet. I hope I can fine the mark when I climb under there. There wasn’t anything that I could see besides surface runt on That dang pulley...better get a good flashlight and magnifying glass I guess lol.

thank you for the info, it helps a ton.

 

Some info from Steve83:

Green pointers good. Red pointers bad.


More info here:
4.9L Timing Information

 

Hey there, ive seemed to make the same rookie mistake and covered basically everything step by step. But i do have a question, when installing the distributor and the rotor is supposed to be pointing at #1. Does that mean it's pointing toward the #1 spark plug on the engine? Or where the #1 spark plug wire is supposed to be on the distributor cap?

 

You need the rotor to point to the #1 spot on the cap.

 

Thank you for the input. I greatly appreciate it.