Pulling the intake off my 7 5.0 to replace the intake gaskets, and I need to pull the distributor out. The seal in that seems to be leaking as well. I undid the single bolt at the base of the dist. where it goes into the block, and i pulled on it, but it won't come lose. Suggestions, ideas?
LOTS and LOTS of PB blaster or similar penetrating oil and work it back and forth as much as you can until it breaks free .
Try wiggling the pickup inside. Can it turn at all? If not, try tapping it lightly with a rubber mallet after you get the front accessories out of the way.
Using the rubber mallet it what I ended up doing. Then it was able to turn, so i wiggled it out. But dummy me, I didn't mark where the rotor was, so when I get it back in, i might be in for another headache. I was so mad as soon as I got it out, and realized what happened.
Make a piston stop out of an old spark plug and 3/8" all thread and set it up for TDC on #1.
or,,
stuff damp paper towel in number 1 hole
bump engine by quickly crossing starter relay
paper will pop out
you check your harmonic and if you went past tdc,, just tool the crank backwards to tdc.
issues....
1- unkown slack in timing chain will lead/lag the crankshaft by uknown amounts
2-nothing is driving the oil pump shaft so the cam to dizzy teeth will need to land pefect to accept the dizzy to oil drive shaft.
usually when I have trouble setting a dizzy, i have my breaker bar on the crank and dial it ccw or cw back and forth while trying to get the dizzy to drop onto the oil drive shaft.
thats like a 1:3 chance right?..i think
anyhow, the piston on tdc doesnt meant its relationship to the cam is correctly on compression stroke..but you gave me an idea.
easy way to do this from now on...
-insert 3 or so foot long hose in #1 spark plug hole that fits snug
-dial crank to tdc
--if you can blow air through, rotate one more complete revolution
--Now if you cant blow air through your are definatly on zero degrees with both I/E valves closed.
I guess the most important thing to do here is to always and forever rotate the crank in the normal running direction/rotation. going backwards frees up your timing chain slack to allow you to place the dizzy but going backwards should only be something that is done in tiny tiny bits. you actually simply "feel" for when the cam and crank come together.
you can measure your slack by placing harmonic on zero then going the opposite direction to measure how much slack is in the chain,,in degrees that is. I would assume using the degree markings on your harmonic is the same thing as a degree wheel.
Once you find top dead center, you will want to mark the crank. The camshaft to crank in itself, you cannot really check or degree unless you pull the valve covers and timing chain cover off. On one of these cars, I would highly recommend a new timing chain whenever you have time. When I did my timing chain cover, the timing chain was so loose that I could almost over lap the timing chain and touch it. But, assuming that the timing chain is still good, you have 0 marked on the crank, then you can move the distributor around to hit 10 degrees atdc with spout out. You have a 50% chance at TDC, if you still have the timing pointer on the front of the engine, it should be pretty easy to guess. I personally very varely use a timing light, or verify TDC. I would say about 90% of the time I pull out my dist, I just drop it back in and it fires right up and just have to adjust it alittle bit.