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'240 Fire!! How to troubleshoot after fixing wiring?

Hi,

I am a first-time owner of a 1982 '240.

I have been a General Motors owner all of my life. This '240 was given to me by a co-worker. It has been a project car for my 16-year old son and me.

I can't tell you how impressed I am by how much easier this car is to work on than my Cutlass! I mean only one 13mm socket to loosen all of the belts?!

Anyway, we got this car for free because it had an electrical engine fire.

It was the wiring harness below the timing cover. I used to install car stereos, so soldering new 15 or so odd wires hasn't been a problem.

The problem is this car won't start.

We did not have a great manual to go by: I am wondering if we don't have the timing belt gears are set up right.

This is what I did:

Cam belt -easy - I just lined up the two big notches.

Crankshaft belt -pretty easy - I found a medium-sized notch on the pulley and lined it up to zero degrees on the cover scale.

Distributer belt - not sure of - I lined the rotor with the mounting screws axis. It lined up to something like

7 o'clock position as you look at it from the front of the car.

Does this sound right? This car has spark. But only coughs once in a while when cranking.

I've googled the groups and have a list of other things to check (Fuses, relays, fouling, etc.) and will do so.

Any help/suggestions you may have would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Dan and Nick

Reply to
Dan
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Check your timing belt work at:

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Reply to
Mike F

Double check the distributor, I had a problem similar to yours when I got it off by 180 degrees, it's also possible that you ran the firing order going the wrong way around the distributor, it's easy to do if you're used to working on a car that spins it the opposite direction.

Reply to
James Sweet

Most likely has no bearing, but are the cylinders of a 4 numbered from the front (like any other car) or weird like the 6 - beginning from the back end of the motor?

Reply to
jg

Hey,

Thanks for the tips!

We tried moving spark plug wires 180 degrees around on the distributor. It backfired through the air cleaner. It was a way nasty pop that burst the snorkel hose.

I thought, "Well, I must have fuel and spark..."

I then moved the wires 90 degrees clockwise from my original position. The car started right up. I am at the clockwise extreme for the distributor cap position, though. I guess I will be having to go to the wire's "backfire" position and offset with the cap position.

I must have misinterpreted something about the rotor position when installing the timing belt. If this is too much of a pain moving wires, I'll have to remove the timing belt and work on figuring out the correct gear setting...

Thanks again for your help!

Dan and Nick

Reply to
Dan

The aux shaft gear has a timing mark which normally points more or less straight to the right when looking at the front of the motor, though the actual position doesn't matter so much, you can always just rotate it until the dist rotor is pointed in a reasonable direction. Easiest way to fix it from where you are now is pull the distributor out, rotate the shaft and stick it back in. You might have to poke a screwdriver down to rotate the oil pump shaft to line it up though.

Reply to
James Sweet

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