I have had the car a few months, and it ran great. I did basic maintenance on the engine, such as carb rebuild and all that fun stuff. I tuned the car last month before I put it on jack stands to restore the suspension and drivetrain.

I went to go start the car the other day and it barely fires, and doesn't want to stay running. Checked the floats and other basic things, then checked the timing, which I had just done before it went on jack stands.

The timing marker isn't even visible! I had the car idling, barely, then was able to advance it just a hair on the distributor and it picked up RPMs, but it still doesn't want to run, and the timing marker is still not visible!

How or what has caused my timing to jump 40+ degrees?!?! Nothing has been touched in the engine since it was running perfectly last month.

 

Going through my photo logs, I see the only thing I did do is replace the oil pump while the car was on jack stands... perhaps the shaft for the oil pump can cause the timing to be off?

 

Yep. Installing the oil pump / distributor shaft even one tooth off will throw the timing out too far. Pretty common rookie mistake.

Is this the first time firing it up since the oil pump install?

 

I redid the oil pump and lined everything up and the car starts right up... Hah. What a rookie mistake.

 

Glad you posted! I should be firing up mine in a couple of months. My distributor was replaced while out of the car. I'll be triple checking with your experience as an inspiration.

 

At TDC cylinder #1, the distributor rotor should be facing just down from straight forward pointing at the radiator support (~8:30 on a clock).

 

Thank you. That check has been added to my To Do list. For some reason I thought I'd read somewhere it should be pointed at the #1 cylinder.

 

Yes, it should be under the cylinder 1 spark plug wire port on the distributor cap....

 

beg3yrs,

When you put the oil pump back in the, there is a little dot on it that should line up with a dot on the oil pump/distributor shaft.

Even though I lined them up, it was still shifting my gear a tooth off, so I had to rotate the dot just a smidge off-center for proper alignment.

If your distributor is off, the shaft should be at the 11:25 position. When I put my oil pump on, the gear was shifting one tooth off causing the problem... should have checked the shaft at the distributor.

 

im starting to wonder about my car now.. I have a old beater 76 that i drove all over the place last summer.. I had a n42 engine with flattops, big cam and other stuff.. jumped timing chain about 3 teeth on that motor so i decided to pull it.

I stuffed a stock n42 engine into it and put su carbs on it like it had before.. Car runs but very poorly, oil pressure is also low on the gauge, needle dips toward the left on the gauge about halfway. Other engine had pressure pushing the guage needle beyond halfway.

Would a improper installed oil pump make for bad pressure? also does the engine need to be drained of oil before pump removal?

The motor in the car now was rebuilt but never ran until now. it got rebuilt in 2004 by someone but no idea who..

Wierd thing ontop of this problem... is i have no headlights now after i installed this motor.. they worked fine before.

 

Check your harness around the core support. There's a ground wire in that area that's important to the headlights. It might have gotten yanked off when you pulled the radiator to change the motor.

 

My oil pressure was low on my engine, so I bought one of the high flow pumps from MSA for $90, and now it is reading high. Also try swapping out the sending unit first.

You would know if you oil pump was installed incorrectly... the car wouldn't run right. When you run the car is it backfiring and missing a lot? If so, pull the distributor cap and rotor off, put the engine at TDC, and the rod that connects to the oil pump should be between the 11 and 12 o'clock position (I am 90% sure that is it... I can't find my reference notes). Sometimes when installing the oil pump gear it slips a tooth, so the timing is off.

You do not need to drain the oil to change the oil pump.

Good luck!

 

This morning I pulled valve cover and distributor cap. When i rotated the engine by hand to line up tdc.. the valves on cylinder 1 were up and confirmed piston at top by sticking a pen in. pulled distributor out to look at position of the shaft that makes it turn.. right around 1130. So that stuff seemed to checkout fine.

Yesterday I put a good trickle charge on it, and overnight it held the charge very good.. cranked the car after making sure plug wires were correct.. fired right up for me. When i leave vacuum advance off and plugged it runs much better than having it connected. The car has su carbs, so im not sure if the advance is designed to only be connected while running efi.

My lights all work now, but the car sucks the life outve itself and dies out within 2minutes after a good long charge. it will make the battery flat dead.

My alternator was simply switched from my other motor that jumped timing chain, it was working fine on that motor until then. I even tried a new 60amp fresh outve box.. still kills itself in 2 or 3 minutes.

Not sure what to do now..