Hey Fellas,

Thanks to Dan for for helping out with the 74 Dart (with 72 Valiant motor?)figuring out the mysterious all of a sudden "won't start" problem. I took your advice and bought a nice core 1920 carb at Wildcat auto (valhalla) this weekend and rebuilt it with a Walker kit.

Car still would turn over but not start so found slantsixbob's post from 10/25/08 "engine won't start cont" and have been advancing one tooth at a time to find the hard to find sweet spot. I pulled the distributor to make sure it was OK? Just want to make sure. We're just doing short 5-10 second tries per instructions.
Oh there are 13 teeth I counted a few more than 10.
So does an HEI or Pertronix igniter require the same hit/miss gear rotations? Man what a pain...

I was wondering, do the teeth for the distributor rotate on the cam or off the oil pump? I haven't been able to find a good picture of who drives who... Feels like maybe the oil pump. I'm hoping like heck that the teeth on those gears are not damaged and causing the mysterious timing jump.

I need to get this baby running so we can drive it to Nebraska for college, so any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'd at least like to get it running well enough to drive to the shop for fine tuning to save a tow bill.

Thanks for your help,
Mike
MMMM Flames...

boy do i remember those times, i spent a long time chasing alot of issues down. on of the main problems i had was that the coil wire on my fire wall connector was un hooked lol. also i had carb, distributor, and timing issues to boot. at one point my timing set went and broke a tooth on the gear.

good luck on finding the issue i hope its a simple one to fix.

quick question though have you done a timing set? also do you got electronic ignition or HEI? or standard points?

The distributer is driven on the cam gear, oil pump off the other side of the cam gear.

Richard

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Part of Tyrde-Browne Racing

Thanks Richard. The reason I asked about the distributor gear on the cam or oil pump is that I'm wondering if a tooth is broken and thats what's jumping the dizzy out of time. I stuck my finger in there and it's hard to tell since the teeth are radiused. I guess if it only happens every 6-8 months no problem, just need to know how to get timing back in shape.

Need to set the timing. Was hoping to luck out last night, but luck sucks for me lately. Sorry to be completely stupid, but what is meant by setting the timing with the "damper"?? I'm guessing it's how I can dial in timing without motor running?? Only done timing on running motors before.

I'll do a search on the forum, I'm sure it's in here somewhere.

Thanks again.

Sorry forgot to answer Bob. It's a stock electronic ignition. Can't afford an HEI. Would be nice though.

yea i hear you on the hei. its a nice mod. but the ei works pretty good too. i have an idea about the damper timing but i think ill let someone else chime in as im not very awake right now hehe.

OK so after blowing flames for another half an hour we finally got the Dart to run. Now new wonderful things happening.

Motor is making a knocking noise which I'm guessing means we still have the timing out. Hopefully that's the problem... I'll go invest in a timing gun I guess and learn another cool skill.

Then I'll go through the carburetor tuning guide. Haven't properly adjusted anything after the carb rebuild yet without motor running. Couldn't resist a quick victory lap around the block since the poor thing has been parked for several months and it was pretty gutless.

Thanks for the help.
--Mike

Seems like an aweful lot of work. Why not just get cyl#1 just before top dead center and aim the rotor at the #1 cylinder tower on the distributor?

It should fire right up and if the adjustable bracket is set somewhere in the middle of it's travel you can set it properly from there.

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madam im adam

Back when I had my 79 D 100 (about 1989-90) I had something happen to me that I'd never seen before. Or since. I was just driving down the road and the engine quit. (OK; THAT part I have seen happen, lol)
It had been running great up until that point; It started popping and backfiring etc as I tried to restart it though.
Finally after getting someone to help me (my arms are not long enough to hit the key while I watch the distribtor spin) I saw that the dist would rotate-stop-rotate again-stop and I was only gettin a lil over 1/2 a revolution out of the rotor at a time; I pulled the dist out and saw the nylon gear was munched. I replaced the gear reinstalled the dist, and it fired-once. So I pulled the dist-again- and again the nylon gear was munched.
Only this time, I had someone crank the engine while I watched; and yup, there were gear teeth missing from the cam!!! this was on a totally stock, never-been-worked-on-since-new, engine, with about 140K. I know this engine had never been into before, since I knew the guy who I'd bought the truck from.

I wasn't as smart back then, (not a whole lot more so now) I went to the junkyard and bought another engine and swapped in. These days I'd have fixed the original engine.

but since joining this forum I have seen similar stories about oil pump/cam gear failures. usually on engines that have been worked on/built up, though. not usually on engines that were still stock/original/unrebuilt. That's the part that still "gets" me, to this day.

Yeah, that's what has me concerned. Pretty much the same experience, drove the car home and luckily died in the driveway. Only difference is that the dist gear is perfect. At least I know how to fix it next time. Hopefully not on the side of the road between Oregon and Nebraska...
That's a good idea, next time I have the dist out I'll take a peek with my little majic mirror and flashlight at the gear teeth. Guess it's a good enough reason to plan out a nicer cam and intake/exhaust manifold, mmm... if I could only win the lottery...

Oh BTW I had #1 at TDC and the dist rotor in the correct position which is where I started at with no firing, which is what had me confused to begin with. That's when I found Dan's elect ignition tips. I may be only one tooth off, which would explain having to go through most of the teeth to get to the right one. Guess I'll have to figure out how far out my timing marks are on the wheel.

So theoretically with electronic ignition if it were to slip a gear tooth in the future would I just have to find the right tooth again and still have the timing set OK?

Thanks,
--Mike