Timing Mishap, Please Help

[sil80drifter]

Hi,I have a 1990 240SX, and I was replacing my timing chain last night, and when I put everythign back together, I messed up on the distributor alignment, so now the car will crank, but won;t start. Now I think I know how to fix it, but for that I need to set the crank pulley to 0 degrees and make sure the number 1 piston is up. How do I KNOW when the timing is at 0 degrees and the #1 pison is up? I have a 1990 240SX. I am able to turn the pulley, but what tells me it's at 0 degrees? Any other tips on fixing the timing/distributor situation? I am kind of in a tight spot because I need the car to go home on wednesday, and right now it's...well undriveable...:help

sil80

[QuinGarcia]

the timing marks are on the outer edge of the crankshaft pulley. The timing pointer is right next to the crank pulley at about 10 o'clock if you are looking from the front of the car. The pointer looks like a little needle. On the crank pulley there will be a bunch of different timing marks all fairly close to each other, I don't which mark denotes TDC, but I would think that it might be the one all the way to the left. But youd better find out for sure.

To answer your other question about how to find TDC. You are trying to find Top Dead Center. So all you need to do is find out which mark on the damper is O degrees BTDC (before top dead center). Set the crankshaft there on TDC and I would suspect that all the pertinent marks on the timing gear would be in the right place.

Do you know for a fact that you installed the chain wrong? You could have just installed the distributor wrong, or just have the timing way off, or the spark plug wires could be out of order.

[sil80drifter]

Thank you, I was looking to fidn otu the position of the needle on the block, with which to align the timing marks to. You are correct, I think i DID install the chain right, and I didn't take any sparkplug wires off (not necessary), but I messed up on when I was putting the distributor back in, which is why I need to put the crank at 0 TDC, then see where my distributor is pointing, and then take it out, make it point at 1st cylinder, have someone turn the key a little and it will drop into its correct position. That's a trick a mechanic told me about, when I asked abotu this problem yesterday.

Hope it works...

sil80

[QuinGarcia]

if i were you I would not use that method of turning the key a little bit to get the distributor to seat completely. If you really wanted to allow it to seat by turning the engine, just turn the engine by hand with one of the belts or with the crank pulley. In my mind, you are begging to break something if you do it by blipping the starter. But thats just my opinion.I'm assuming that the reason why you cant get the distributor to go all the way in is because it is not properly engaging the piece that drives it on the inside of the engine..

[drjohn]

TDC on the crank pulley is the 2nd mark from the left on the pulley 1st is 5 deg. after tdc. With #1 cyl. tdc you need to remove the oil pump and on the shaft is a small pein mark like a punch and the oil pump has a notch in it with the same punch mark on it. Align those to marks and install the pump with out turning the pump and put it in with 1 bolt. Look through the dist. hole and the raised half moon should be forward and the moon should be at about 11 at top and 25 after at the bottom.