Never Be Afraid

[Dave Gantz]

Originally Posted by Dirk Olson

I was15 years old and had a 64 chevy pickup decided to do a tune up so I put in the points set put the dwell meter on started up set the dwell ran great! but I wanted to put so neat wires and cap on (colored) pulled the wires and cap, reinstalled per the Motor Manual and it would not start, backfired and I am wondering what the hell I did wrong. looked at the book checked and rechecked still did not run. after a couple of very frustrating days i walked up the street to talk to a older guy that worked at one of the dealerships and the first thing he asked was where was number one/ I went HUUUU, WHAT? then he explain that someone may have have the distributor out and they wire it to work, meaning number one can be anywhere on the cap. My young brain had a hard time wrapping around that but he explained what I need to do. I went home found top dead center on number one, pulled the distributor reinstalled, wired per the Motor Manual, worked like a charm. Was a valuable lesson I have never forgot.

I had a similiar experience. I had a 69 Impala when I was 16 or 17; I was in auto shop in school at the time. Anyway, I tuned up the 350. Plugs wires, cap rotor, points, condenser. No start, popped out the carb. Checked everything. My shop teacher (who sold me the beauty), was also flummoxed, to the point that he came to the house after school one day. He found it; someone had put the distributor in 180 out and "fixed" it by butchering the rotor so that the square peg fit in the round hole! So, I had put the new rotor in and, bingo, 180* out! My teacher was a used car guy who flipped the Impala to me and had no idea what the buddy he had gotten it from did to it.
Although that's where I learned what an out of time distributor sounded like, I learned more about shady car guys that day. (turned out, the Imp was a 300 hp 350, and the heads were swiped and replaced with whatever Chevy heads were cheap. I'm not a Chevy guy and don't remember.) The car did run smooth as glass though, until I seized it in cold weather running straight 30w. But that's another story.