im posting this for a buddy of mine, maybe some one can help thanks in advance Here's the deal. 1955 super 88 with a 61' 394 cid in it. Engine cranks but does not start unless I move the distributor counter clockwise -- (I'm ***uming retarding timing) little by little until it starts --- Once I have it running, it runs rough. Now, I keep turning the dist. a little more and it run better, but not as god as it use to run before any of this happend. The timing is not jumping or anything -- Now I am ***uming it has something to do in the distributor and it is not the points, running petronix. Does anyone out there have any idea? Could it be the vacuum advance, is there any mechanical parts in the dist that would make it run like this. Please, help need to have veh ready for The Turkey run in November.
It is very common in GM distributors for the mechanical advance mech to stick in the full advanced position. Is there a lot of brown colored deposits on the advance weights ? Usually the Vac can will get a leak and you won't have any vac advance , but the engine will start normally. If the weights and pivot pins are not worn too bad you can take the dist apart and clean it up and relube the mech advance with dist lube.
Is this a stock engine? If it has the original cam sprocket on it they had plastic teeth on them, and when they get old (like all of them now) they break off. Sounds like your timing chain jumped one or more teeth. You can fix the timing by turning the distributor but the cam is now running retarded. So it runs like ****, until it jumps again and it will not run at all.
Usually a sign of jumped timing in a gm {nylon teeh gone} replaced a ton of them back in the day! Jerry
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