I do not know if anyone else has experienced this but I have never had to find TDC to get my truck timed correctly. As a matter of fact I just had my distributor loosen up on me while driving, pushed in the clutch to coast up to the light and the engine died. Could not restart, at the light and had to push it out of the intersection.

To get the timing down so I could get it to start I had to use unorthadox methods. Since the distributor will feel like it is going in properly 2 ways, and the cap will only go on one way, I had to remember back when I changed my rotor. The bolt that holds it in was pointing out at me. So I changed the rotor setting to that way, tightend it up and did my final adjustments. Runs like a top. Do not know if this is even helpful info, but I was in dire starits with my truck stuck in a police station parking lot for 5 days.