Hey guys n gals, now that I finally have the motor in the truck I decided I was going to start getting to the good stuff and extend the wires and such. Well I wanted to get the dist in place and noticed that when the #1 piston was TDC that the rotor on top was way off, I've always been told the rotor points at the #1 piston when its TDC. So in my glorious attempt to fix this I accidentally lifted to high on the dist which then caused the oil pump shaft to come completely out of the bottom part of the dist. The oil pump shaft is still in the oil pump but is now leaning over agaist the small little hole where the bottom of the dist goes and wont let me get the dist all the way back down.




Is there any easy way to fix this without having to drop the pan or take the front off the motor?

 

Couple of things to try.
I have used a pickup tool, one of those things with a flexible cable about 18" long with a push **** on top and 3 or 4 wire "claws" at the working end. Also, a magnetic pickup tool will also work (most hardware stores will have these).

I have also used a plastic drinking straw, just push it over the end of the shaft and lift carefully. Sometimes you might have to chew on the end of the straw a bit to get it to fit the shaft. You can also probably use a peice of vacuum line or some other tubing that will fit tightly over the shaft.

Good Luck

 

Wouldn't that pull it out from the oil pump then?

 

Been a while since I did a SBF, but it doesn't seem likely it is in the oil pump if it is down like that. There is supposed to be a piece on the hex shaft (like a clip) to prevent it falling down.

 

I thought that too but when I tried to put the end of the shaft with the clip on it above the hole the shaft wouldn't go all the way down into the oil pump.

 

if you are POSITIVE shaft is still in pump, take a little vaseline and use to center shaft in hole. a small model paint brush helps get down the tube. do NOT use a q-tip!!

 

The oil pump drive shaft is not supposed to come out with the distributor. The purpose of the clip is to keep the driveshaft in place when you do remove the dist. So if you installed the pump, shaft, and clip correctly, everything should be fine. You can take a long, skinny screwdrivet and move the top of the driveshaft a bit to center it in the hole. If it falls over, you can try the vaseline trick mentioned above to help hold it in the center. All you're looking to do there is make it easier for the dist to drop in.

That said, on a SBF, the rotor does not point to the number one cylinder. It actually points closer to the brake booster. Most dist caps have a number 1 molded into the top to designate which is number 1. The rotation is counter-clockwise.

Here's a good illistration, but beware the firing order shown is for 5.0HO and 351, not the traditional 15426378 used for the 289/302.

 

I have a 1968 289 in my 52 F1. The number one position should be on the dist. cap as mentioned earlier and the piston numbers are also correct. The firing order is 1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8. Hope this helps.

 

If your oil pump driveshaft is installed correctly, then with the engine upside down on the stand, the clip should be down against the hole in the block and the pump should be installed over it. The idea with the clip is so that when you pull the distributor out, the clip bottoms against the block and doesn't allow the shaft to pull up with the distributor. I put a shaft in upside down with the clip against the oil pump one time and lost the shaft down in the oil pan when I pulled the distributor out. That was not a good time.

A couple other things to be aware of - If you don't already have the plug wires installed so that you're trying to match their existing positions, then the engine and distributor don't really care which terminal on the distributor cap is number 1. Bring the #1 piston up to TDC on the compression stroke and you can call whatever terminal the rotor points at #1 and wire it up from there. As long as the firing order is correct from that point, it doesn't make any difference. The other thing is that it is sometimes a little difficult to get the distributor to drop right. If the hex in the bottom of the distributor shaft and the hex on the oil pump shaft aren't all in perfect alignment as you are dropping in the distributor, then they will not slip together and it won't go in al the way. I've found that the easiest way to overcome this is to "bang" the shaft down against the pump shaft a few times. It will usually cause the pump shaft to rotate enough to make it slip together.

 

Yeah, I had my hex shaft break on me while driving! Who would have thought it would just fail. Fishing out the broken piece was fun. LOL. The point is, if you're going through all this, replace the hex shaft while you're at it

 

It is a new shaft and the clip is on the bottom by the oil pump and the shaft doesn't fall down when the dist is removed. I was just having problems with getting the dist over the shaft once the dist shaft got in the hole where they meet. I dropped the oil pan and was able to get the dist over the shaft and the #1 wire tierminal is on the drivers side pointing back towards the brake booster like mentioned. Hopefully soon I will get far enuff along that I will be able to fire it up, that is once I get the correct headers for it. Summit isnt going to like me when I send those back along with the wrong plug wires and tranny pan...lol

 

The clip is not suppose to be at the oil pump end!

 

I had a similiar problem with my 302; whenever the distr. did slip down it wasn't pointing at the #1 plug on the cap; so I just made where it was pointing the #1 plug and rotated the rest of the wires accordingly it worked for me. Unless you're saying that your disrtibutor will not slide down on the shaft at all.

 

what I did on my 460 was put/taped 5/16" socket on 1/4"x3/8"drive adapter on 3/8" extension and rotate oil pump shaft until rotor aligned with #1 on dist

 

Tardster, you need to re-read these posts! The dizzy may not pull the shaft out of the pump now, but next time you pull it (with the engine in the car) it very likely will...