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  1. #1

    Default DUI install help

    First off, This is my first time messing with installing a distributor. I'm pretty mechanical but this is new.

    Background: My boat blew it's transmission late in the summer of 2020. With it being late in the year, and with my wife being pregnant, we opted to put it up for the year. Summer of '21 after baby was born, I was able to rebuild the transmission in my free time (whatever that is). Around July, I was able to take the boat to the lake. Engine ran pretty bad and eventually shut down and would not restart. Transmission ran fine for that mile or so. I opted to rebuild the carb and go ahead and change out the distributor. The old distributor was full of corrosion and looked like it snowed inside. Probably the main issue here.

    I installed my DUI on my 84 comp in the fall. Ran out of time, didn't get to try to start it afterwards so I just closed it up for the winter. Boat life with a 7 month old baby is fun. Over the winter, I've been getting pressure from upper management to get the boat working for the season and took this weekend to work on that. Pulled the boat back out and got to work Saturday. Since I wasn't confident in my previous work, I started from "scratch". Pulled #1 plug, turned engine until pressure started pushing my finger out, and then adjusted to 12 degrees BTC on the harmonic balancer as shown on the DUI paperwork. After, I installed distributor cap with the rotor pointing towards my #1 wire while engine was at this point.

    I was able to get the engine to run. It ran well, but the timing light was showing a number 13 on the harmonic balancer which is not near the actual timing marks The idle was a little higher than normal too at 1100 RPM. At this point, I gave up for that day.

    My worry is that this is a combo of carburetion and timing which makes things complex. I'm about 30% confident in my carb rebuild skills. I'm thinking it may be worth my $750 to eliminate that out of the question, because if I can't figure this out and take it to the shop, it'll end up being that anyways.

    Did I do something wrong in the distributor process? Surely if it was that off the engine wouldn't run and would backfire? It ran pretty smooth.

    Any ideas would be great.
    Last edited by hoop46; 03-07-2022 at 12:51 PM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Flowery Branch Georgia
    Posts
    2,742

    Default

    Can you get it to the 10 degree mark buy turning the distributor. You can't do any fine tuning on the carb until you set the timing. You may be one tooth off when you installed the dist.

  3. #3

    Default

    Nope I wasn't able to get anywhere close to those marks. I was thinking it could be off 180 degrees but I wouldn't think it would without a lot of backfiring if it was.

  4. #4

    Default

    Another thing, just spitballing. When I inserted the distributor I had the mark at 12 degrees, should I have had it at 0?

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Flowery Branch Georgia
    Posts
    2,742

    Default

    Yes should have been at o degrees top dead center. I think you are 1 tooth off. The thermostat doesn't allow much movement of the distributor.

  6. #6

    Default

    Yep It's a very tight fit. I'll try again at 0 degrees when I get the chance to pull it out. Maybe this Carb will last a few more years!

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