A very common problem with the later 273,318,340,and 360 is they like to punch holes in the rocker arms. If it has a lot of miles, I would pull the valve covers and take a look. very easy fix if the lifter(s) stayed in their bores. this will cause the problem you described. Seen it many times.
Ok well cap looks suspect.. i Can´t see any cracks but it has seen better days for sure. in fact when I pulled the coil to cap boot off it crumbled and pieces fell off.. So that will be getting replaced first off.. Another thing I just noticed is that the vacuum advance is pointing straight back and the vacuum line is pinched against the back wall of the doghouse. when I **** on it to get it to advance I get nothing. I never noticed it before as As I said it ran fine. started up first time every time without barely turning the key.. Never pinged so I thought it was timed right... Then this happened... So the fact its pinched..that just does not seem right... I tried to turn the dist by hand but would not budge.. so the hold down is tight.. could it have moved while driving and cause the timing to go out? Broke a tooth? Could that be why it is not pointing to the number one plug wire? At tdc it should be,, correct? or is it ok. If the tube is pinched and not getting vacuum it could not advance it.. so... WTF?? The vacuum line should not be pinched. so should I turn it so that when at rest the rotor is in line with plug wire #1 and try to start it? that looks like it will un pinch it and the rotor will still not be facing to the front right but will be facing to the right plug wire... Or first pull the dist and check it?
I'm no expert on 318's, but could it be that the distributor clamp loosened some while the thing was running, causing the distributor housing to rotate quickly and slam the vac advance into doghouse. I saw something like this happen on a 390 ford that I was following from a car show and I stopped to ***ist when it pulled off the road. Guy said it was running perfectly, then backfired a few times and died. Turns out somehow the dist loosened and rotated under power as far as it could till it ran in the intake manifold. It also appeared like the holdown clamp was tight, but in fact it was jammed... and way outta time. Rotated it back and she fired up. Just a thought.
Compression check should have been done already, do it, it will tell you more than anything else. As to timing chain, turning in one direction is not enough. Have a friend turn the crank until the rotor turns, then turn the crank in the opposite direction and watch the rotor. If it takes more than about 15 degrees of rotation before the rotor turns, the timing chain is shot. But do the compression check first, to see if any more effort should be expended on a possibly dead engine. Cosmo
The distributor has a slotted shaft. The gear is internal to the engine and is beefy. No way is the dizzy gear.
Does that have the original points distributor? Sometimes people dropped screws while changing points and condenser and the screw can get caught in the mechanical advance causing the distributor to rotate. Some of the early electronic distributors had bearing problems. When they had trouble on the road, you open the hood and the plug wires would be twisted into a bundle. When #1 comes to the top on compression, the rotor should point to the number one plug wire. Either the distributor turned or the timing chain jumped. Since you found the vacuum advance jammed against the doghouse, the distributor may have turned. Then again, the motor was rebuilt so you never know how it was installed. You can try turning the distributor and lining up the rotor with #1 plug wire when #1 is at top dead center on compression. The timing mark should also be lined up at TDC.
Well i think i found the culprit. I did get it on tdc and it was not pointing to plug one. I also posted this on another forum and the picture of one guys set up showed the distributor vacuum adv 90 deg to the front of the engine. When I turned the distributor to mimic this set up, ·1 plug came up and lined up with the rotor. I also found that the return spring would not return the rotor if turned by hand.(hard to do by hand, had to really force it!). I just yanked it and the distributor does not at all turn freely, so i know its shot. Off to the parts store to pick a new one up. will keep you guys posted! thanks for all the suggestions so far! wish me luck!
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