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Distributor all the way advanced?

mr240man

New member
Joined
May 10, 2017
Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Over the past few weeks I've been trying to solve my high idle problem on my '83 LH 1.0 B21F with the white cap chrysler dist. It recently lost spark after I took the impulse sender out and checked the resistances. Went through the greenbook diagnostics and found no issues with my harnesses, ICU, or coil. Turns out I had manhandled the impulse sender and so I replaced it with a NOS unit off fleabay. For the heck of it, I took the timing covers off and put the #1 piston at TDC on the compression stroke with intermediate shaft, crank, and cam pulley at their respective marks. Turns out the previous owner/mechanic had set the distributor 180 deg. off where the rotor pointed to #4 at TDC on cylinder 1...ahhh so that's why my firing order was wrong and the spark plug wires were stretched to reach their plugs. I'm surprised it ran well 180 degrees out like this besides the high idle.

Took the distributor out and looked for the notch where the rotor lines up with (didn't see one). So I went ahead and installed the distro where the gears mesh up and the rotor shaft allows the rotor to point to the thermostat housing at #1 TDC compression stroke. Fired right up and lo and behold idles at the correct RPM---however the distributor is turned all of the way advanced and only shows 5 degrees of timing at base idle. Reving the motor advances the timing per the ICU like it should, but I'm wondering why full advance is only 5 degrees at base idle? Guess I could take a rasp and file the adjustment slot for a few more degrees if I have to.
 
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There is a procedure for installing the distributor. You don't line up the rotor with the housing notch when installing b/c when the gears engage they cause the rotor to move a fraction of a turn or so. IIRC the Greenbook says turn the rotor ~60deg clockwise from the housing mark before installing.
 
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I'll go out and try removing and refitting the distributor and see if I can get more adjustment. I do remember how when the gears engaged it would slightly turn the rotor out of alignment one way or the other, and I left it where it was the closest to pointing directly at Cyl #1 on the cap. From reading other's threads I was under the impression that the distributor would have the alignment marks, but this Chrysler doesn't have anything.

I just found a section of the greenbook showing the white cap Chrysler distributor removal where you align the rotor with the rubber grommet on the impulse sender before removing the dist and when refitting that you align the longest side of the tubular pin on the rotor shaft opposite side of the groove in the lower dist body--these must be the marks?

Update: Thanks guys it was a noob mistake on my part! As oldschoolvolvo said above, the rotor shaft seems to need to be clocked about 60 degrees clockwise from the impulse sender grommet when installing the dist. My problem was that I had the rotor shaft aligned up with the grommet at full adjustment on the distributor body so that I couldn't turn the body to advance it further. I put the dist body adjustment all the way retarded on the slot where the gears meshed up and the rotor pointed to the grommet. This gave me a good range of timing adjustment. Set it at 8 degrees base idle and im getting 55 degrees total timing all in. Seems to idle around 900rpm and rev nicely, so I'm happy!
 
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