My son has been having a no-start condition after the motor gets hot (76 302). Carbs good, don't have vapor lock, replaced the coil and the ignition module (spark seemed weak) and prepared to replace the stator by pulling the distributor. We got the #1 cylinder to TDC and found the rotor pointing between the 1 and 5 cylinders and the timing marks on the harmonic balancer were barely in the picture. I'm guessing that whoever put the distributor in could have missed a tooth and caused it to be off that much but should those marks on the balancer be so far off? It can only go on one way. I'm going to drop in a reman distributor this afternoon and want to make sure I've got my act together.

 

Just make sure your on the compresion stroke when the piston is coming up you should be able to feel the preasure coming out the # 1 spark plug hole...Balancer at TDC then dist in with rotor pointing at # 1 ..Set timing... Lew

 

If I set the balancer to the TDC mark then the rotor will not be pointing at #1. Right now I have the #1 cylinder up on the compression stroke and the rotor pointed at the #1 firing point in the cap and the mark on the balancer would be something like 65 BTC (if it went that high).

 

Then your not on the compression stroke...Turn the crank around again to TDC then it should be at #1...Its 180 off...If your distributer isnt close to #1 at comp stroke at TDC it ussally wont start if its that far off....Did you pull the distributer out....??? Timming chain ??? I thought you just wanted to know how to set the dist & timing...Sounds like a bad timing chain.or dist gear....The best way to tell is turn the crank by hand untill the dist starts to move then turn it back the other way & see how far you turn the crank to get the dist to move this will tell you how much play you have...Good Luck..Lew

 

Outer ring on harmonic balancer can slip when rubber between parts deteriorates.

 

Lew should be completely correct. I just timed my rebuilt motor and made sure not to do that.

Follow this process.
*Make a mental note of the general direction the distributor is facing, then remove distributor.
*Pull #1 spark plug. (PS front one.)
*Push your finger into the spark plug hole, making sure it seals tightly.
*Using a 15/16's socket turn the motor clockwise continually.
*When you feel pressure start to push your finger out, remove your finger.
*Then peep into the hole with a flashlight and you should see the piston coming towards the top as you turn the motor. *Now, look at the balancer. Is it near "0?"
*If the piston is almost at the top of it's stroke you will be very close to 0. In that case just align the timing point exactly to 0.
*Mark "0" on the balancer with a brightly colored paint or marker, I use a silver sharpie.
*If you are at 0 and you don't feel/see the piston coming up then rotate the entire engine one more time. Now you should be there.
*Then take your rotor and point it at "1" on the cap.
*Re-insert the distributor in the same general direction it was when you took it off.
*Leave the distributor clamp just loose enough to be able to turn it by hand.
*Then fire it up!
*You may have to rotate the whole distributor to get the motor to fire the first time because even following this procedure it's easy to put it in 1 tooth off. If you have to really crank the distributor far to one side or the other to get it to fire it's off a tooth.
Then it's just tuning it to find the sweet spot!

I've got a '93 302 running EFI so we set ours to 10*BTDC.
I'm not sure if older 302's are different.

Good luck!

 

It was not nearly as far off as I thought, I must have made a mental note before we came around for the last time. Got it all in and went to fire it it up and - nothing. My son left the key on all night/day. Well, one night on the charger and we'll give it the test tomorrow morning. Sure hope this cures the hot restart problem. The plastic on the old stator was starting to deteriorate so maybe that was the ticket. Thanks for the help.

 

Glad to hear! Keep us informed!

 

Success! So far so good. Needs some more tweaking since all of our previous adjustments were based on a faulty ignition system. Ran it for about a half hour, shut it down for 30 mins the cranked it back up. It wouldn't restart hot before. Things are looking up.

 

Awesome! Is that the truck in our avatar?

 

No. That's MY 74 F100 XLT. Bought it from the original owner about 4 years ago. It has around 80K original miles but had to drop another 360 in it a couple of years ago - broke a main bearing. Planing on rebuilding the original motor soon - boring it out to a 390.

 

A 360 has the same bore as a 390. The difference is the stroke.

 

Nice! Reminds me of my Dad's Camper Special.