Ditributor Roder Play

All, I recently replaced my distributor cap and rotor. I realized the rotor had play after I put a new rode on. I could actually turn the whole rotor 360 degrees. My concern is that I might have screwed something up as I took the old rotor off cause it was a pain.

After I replaced it and put everything back i.e. cap and wires. The truck would not start. So I figured I might have screwed up the timing. So I put the engine in position 1 (piston 1 down) and made sure the rotor was on piston one point on the distributor. By doing this I kind of rough set the timing. The truck started.

Should the rotor have so much play? Could it be causing my current issue of low idol?

Well, in simple terms, if the engine is running all you need to do is get a strobe light and check where the timing is. Assuming it is a 3.9 post '93 you'll be wanting 5 degrees BTCD +/- 1 degree.

As for the play on the rotor arm, there should be a bit of movement if you physically twist the rotor arm, this is how to check the mechanical advance. If the roror arm is solid and has no movement then the mech advance is shot and a distributor rebuild is needed.

Do as search, ther is plenty of info for timing up a V8.

I just replaced the cap and rotor with a Lucas and cleaned the throttle body. Im still having the same issue. The rotor (distributor pipe where the rotor button is put on) has play counter clock wise and it it has play vertically up and down. I also cleaned ICA.. I did not have the issue until I replaced the rotor button, I think I screwed up the distributor while I was trying to take of the old button. Is there anything else I can check. The idle is low at time and and times it wont start like its not getting enough gas.

I took a recommendation to swap the new Delco cap and rotor with a Lucas and cleaned the throttle/Idle Control.
The truck ran for a while but it stalled on me. Now it wont start. When I was putting on the new rotor I noticed that the stub that the rotor sits on had alot of play vertically. I was able to pull it up about 1/2 inch and rotate it about 1/4 around counter clock wise and a little bit clock wise. Can this be symptom that the distributor is bad? Not sure what else it could be seeing that it was running well before I did the tune up. I think I might have screwed up the distributor when I took the old rotor off.