V8i 3.9 Distributor prob.

:welcome2:Hi all, well it started misfiring so whent to remove rotor arm and the whole shaft lifted up about 1/2" before arm came off! Told its a common problem, anyway to cut a long story short I decided to invest in a new disy from simons bbc Arrive this morning put it in but won't start
Guess the timing is out just turns over and that's it. Couldn't set it up before I took the old one out as I'd already lost the timing! How do I get it right easily so I can drive to the garage to get a strobe put on it?

Egards

Steve

You need to statically time it. Take no 1 spark plug out. Remove coil lead from coil and move far away from coil or spark will jump. Put your thumb over the plug hole and get someone to tickle the starter motor until you feel compression building under your thumb. Stop and check that the point on the crank is at around 6-10 degrees. Insert distributor so that the the rotor points towards no1 plug terminal. You may need to line up the tang on the oil pump shaft in the hole you are putting the distributor in and note that as the gear on the distributor engages the rotor arm will turn too far so back out go back a tooth and keep trying until it about lines up. That should be close enough to get you started. The engines will take worse timing than that and still start.

Hope your dizzy is OK, i just sent mine back last week as the casting was out of round. Could not get the cap on straight or in the same position each time, hence the timing would be out. Cap location needs to be really positive and free of slack. I guess all this was because it's a copy. Can't comment on the rest of their gear though. Just my experience was not so good.

Thanks for that, the cap on this one is a good snug fit in fact I had to strugle to get it off but does seem to fit well. Will let you know once I get it started.
You recon it will be OK to drive like that then?

Yes, that'll be good enough to get you to strobe light

Does anyone know which of the two feed wires that feed the disy which one is live? the Red or Blue?

sash said:

Does anyone know which of the two feed wires that feed the disy which one is live? the Red or Blue?

Click to expand...

Multimeter?? or a 12v bulb put wire to bottom of bulb earth metal bit of bulb and crank. if bulb flickers/lights you've found the livefeed.. :doh:

Get a socket and half extension on the centre nut on the crank fly wheel, this will allow you to turn the engine, take no1 plug out, use a long screw driver down the plug hole and feel where the piston is, with screw driver on the piston gently turn the crank until the piston reaches the top of its stroke, once this is reached go to your distributor set the rotor arm to the no1 position, with a torch look into its locating hole and you will see where spade end on the bottom of the distributor locates, gently lower the distributor into the hole until you feel it locate, once in check it’s still pointing at no1 , if its moved a little just turn the distributor to match up with no1 position do not take out to do this, tighten just enough to keep the distributor still and fit cap with leads and try it, it should run then all you need do is fine tune by moving the distributor left or right a little until it runs smooth.

To all the Members who have posted advice for me a big thank you finally got it running this afternoon,found out what the problem was,took out the dizzy removed cap and all the leads,did a continuity test on every lead with an meter made sure had good continuity,removed the amplifier from the dizzy checked the pickup resistance was 2.5Kohms, looked at the socket where the amplifier plugs into tightened up the connections,checked the gap across the pickup and the teeth in the dizzy found it to be to big,reset it to 0.30mm using a small peice of 800 grade wet/dry measured with digital caliper,put everything back together reset timing to 6 deg BTDC approx put a new battery on and Bingo fired first time and continued running,put a timing light onit set to run about 1000 rpm and it starts first time.
Many Thanks for all your help.
Redacer 180
PS I have the really big Range Rover Manual for the Years 90 to 94
if any one needs any info only to happy to advise.

Did you ever get this sorted out. Exactly the same has happened to my son. He has had trouble for a long time and this morning when he took the rotor arm off the whole centre thing came out so he now needs anew distributor. I thought I would pick your brains first to see how you got on as it is an expensive job.

you dont need a new distributor at all! just strip it down and put it back together!!!

put your location in your profile so people know where you are!

easy to rebuild the dizzy so really do not worry, just be VERY careful not to loose any of the small components that will be sat around in the bottom.

if youre even luckier the springs will not have come off the bob weights so you can just undo the 3 baseplate screws and open up the weights to replace the centre part.

a piece of 6mm OD nylon pipe suffices as a locating bush to keep the two parts together, this pushes into the centre spindle inside where the rotor arm sits