enblethen
Moses Lake, WA
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OP: did you replace the distributor cap?
Bud
USAF Retired
Pace Arrow
2003 Chev Ice Road Tracker
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JoeH
Apollo Beach,FL
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OutofTime wrote:JoeH wrote:How many miles on the engine ? Have you checked the timing chain ?
It does have north of 200k on it. I am thinking about the timing chain, but it was running, driving just days ago. Hurts my brain a bit to think about it. A timing job would involve dropping a front cover, removing the crank/harmonic balancer/water pump right?
Well you have some investigation to do. Check easier/simpler stuff first. I had one jump timing at about 175k miles , it would start and run, but run hot/rough. Then it jumped again and that was it... wouldn't start. I replaced the gears and chain in the motel parking lot that I had managed to coast into when it died.
Joe
2013 Dutch Star 4338- all electric
Toad is 2015 F-150 with bikes,kayaks and Harley aboard
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enblethen
Moses Lake, WA
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Did you remove the distributor?
If you did, did it drop all the way back into the block, or was the engine rotated ?
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OutofTime
Florida
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So I finally got it to run and learned a few things along the way.
1. With the timing mark on the bottom driver, use cylinder 5.
2. The harmonic balancer has not slipped. I used a long 1/4 extension to check the travel of the piston as the crank was rotated to 4 degrees BTDC. It jammed up on the extension just shy 4 BTDC, so I know the balancer placement is good.
3. Now to why it would not run... turns out pointing the rotor at the cylinder 5 wire location on the cap would work much better than pointing the rotor directly toward cylinder 5. Once I had that brainwave, I got it close enough I was able to rotate the dizzy to make it fire.
Normally I work on Fords and engines with top timing indicators where you can reference the dizzy so that the wire 1 contact lines up with cylinder 1 so you can point at the cylinder and life is good. That small detail kept me fighting this thing for a week...
It still idles a bit rough and backfires a little when you punch the throttle, but I haven't put a timing light on it either yet. I imagine as I clean up bad grounds, replace filters and repair wire damage the engine will run better.. to a point.
In any case, thank you to everyone who contributed advice and I hope posting what I learned will help someone down the road.
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enblethen
Moses Lake, WA
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Glad to hear you got it running!
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Stim
NE Florida
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Running rough, backfiring, TBI's are known for having pressure regulator in them get weak.
They are cheap and easy to change.
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OutofTime
Florida
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Stim wrote:Running rough, backfiring, TBI's are known for having pressure regulator in them get weak.
They are cheap and easy to change.
Can you show me an example? I did a quick web search and all I could find is a gasket kit with what looked like a accelerator pump from a carb being listed as the fuel pressure regulator. Not particularly cheap either.
It does remind me that I need to replace the fuel filter, check the TPS, IAC, MAP and make sure all of them are working right. If any of them are wrong that can cause the running rich, running rough and backfiring under load that I am seeing.
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Stim
NE Florida
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Here is one kit that I found on google- https://www.summitracing.com/parts/smp-pr131t?seid=srese1&gclid=CjwKCAiAu5agBhBzEiwAdiR5tCYx3zV6Y93elFiMk0_QcCX3LwfZN_A5TmNh2G_6kDkYmG0ieaNZEBoC0xgQAvD_BwE
I had a 1989 Chevy PU and replaced the tbi regulator back in about 1995 and it was a common problem back then.
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enblethen
Moses Lake, WA
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Summit racing link
Have you changed the plug wires?
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OutofTime
Florida
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Thanks for the link. I have replaced both plug and wire as I wasn't sure how old the wires were and the plugs I found in there were the wrong temp plug. It has the original OEM ACDelco plug in there, wire kit seems decent.
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