So my buddy has an 89 F150 5.0l v8. His distributor had gone bad and he decided to replace it. Unfortunately he didnt mark anything on the old one to compare to the new one so the car wont start because we dont know what position the arm mark is supposed to be in.
Any Ideas?
Pull the number one spark plug and crank the motor over by hand until you get it to TDC. You can use a long dowel to do it; that's about the easiest way. If you can see a timing mark on the damper pulley, it should be close to the pointer. If not, you are probably 180 degrees out. Then pull the distributor and rotate it around until the rotor is pointing to the number one plug wire. That should get you close enough to at least get it started.
Find #1 TDC (you'll need to pull the driver's side rocker arm cover and/or the #1 spark plug) and go from there. You will probably need to bump the engine over with a remote starter switch while lightly pressing down on the dist. body to engage the oil pump drive (assuming that a SBF uses the dist. drive to run the oil pump like the Chevies and Studebakers that I'm used to working on.)
nate
it'll be aligned w/ the timing mark whenever #1 is at TDC, either compression or exhaust. he needs to make sure it's on the compression stroke not the exhaust stroke. easiest way to do that is with a thumb over the spark plug hole (to feel the air pushing out) or by pulling the rocker cover and making sure that both valves on #1 are firmly closed.
nate
Yep, you're right. Been a long time since I worked on something that old, and my mind is even older, IYKWIM :-)
You have to put the motor at TDC, and set the distributor to #1.
The hard part is finding where the body of the distributor goes relative to #1. This is done by putting the cap on the body, and using a Sharpie to mark where #1 is. Then take the cap off and align the rotor so that it points to the mark when the distributor is installed. So, the hard part is not really very hard at all ...
Thanks for all the replies guys, Ill be heading over there tonight to work on it. Ill post if I have any more problems!
Thanks again!
Old? heck my '93 is the newest vehicle I've ever owned, save for an '02 GTI that I bought new and then sold because I got screwed at work and couldn't afford the payments anymore :/
nate
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