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Wed May 25, 2005 7:49 pm

So I replaced all the hoses on my 83 aircooled westy and I stripped everything down to the engine tin and cleaned everything. Everything is connected and now when I fire her off- the starter just turns and the engine doesn't start. After trying to start for a while- she made a pop and blew the hose to the aux air regulator off and left some smoke in there :( So I'm thinking that maybe I put the spark plugs on wrong maybe... I put them on 1-4-3-2 in clockwise order on the dist cap- is that it? Help save my weekend, I'm planning a sweet little road trip and now Rosilita is sick!

Wed May 25, 2005 8:45 pm

On my '80: standing at the back of the van staring into the LeBrea Tar Pit, if my cap was a clock, it would be: 2:00 #2 ; 5:00 #1 ; 8:00 # 4 ; 11:00 #3 . Hope your distributor is installed right.

Wed May 25, 2005 8:54 pm

mmmhhhh, I wonder if that's it- I think it is...

Thu May 26, 2005 4:35 am

1, 4, 3, 2 is correct, but did you put the wires on the correct towers? Remove your distributor cap. You should see a small groove on the top edge of the distributor (part the the cap rests on). As islandwesty stated, #1 will probably be at about the 5:00 position. (If you don't see the groove, feel for it using your fingernail). That groove marks the #1 position. Put the cap back on and make sure the wire that lines up with that groove is going to cyl. #1. Going clockwise from that point, should be 4, 3, 2. The cylinder #'s are marked on the engine tin (as I'm sure you've already seen).

Thu May 26, 2005 11:46 am

Okay, I did that. The rotor is possibly rotated 180 degrees in the wrong direction. have to check that tonight.
Could I have possibly done engine/head or AFM damage from doing this?

Thu May 26, 2005 1:33 pm

If you removed the distributor it is really easy to put it in 180* out of phase.

You could:

Pull it out and install it correctly

or leave it as it is for now and change the wires 1=3 and 4=2 at the distributor cap to see if it will start up.

You might also have to look inside the AFM to make sure the little door in there is swinging freely.

On my bus it almost seems like the cap will go on the distributor 180* out but if you carefully look and feel it really only goes one way. Ideally taht one way will line up the #1 scratch in the distributor base to the postion of the #1 wire in the cap.

Thu May 26, 2005 5:27 pm

Ok, so the plug wires were on wrong- now I have them on right. The engine will now crank and start for a few seconds and then die- I've tried rotating the distributor a million different ways and I can't seem to get it to take off... Last try I was standing back there with my remote starter and it backfired and blew a hose off again... Maybe I switched some fuel injector plugs??? How could I tell??? I tried rotating the dist. cap 180 and that had the same results as before- no go... HELP!

Fri May 27, 2005 5:51 am

I'm a little confused.... by your description it sounds like your rotor is pointing at cyl 2 on the cap??

Here's what I do with an "unknown" timed engine.

Set #1 to TDC of compression stroke. You can actually see the piston if you look through the spark plug hole (shine a light down there; I have one of those thin flex-a-lights that works great for this). Make sure the rotor is pointed towards you, not away from you. If its pointing away (towards the front of the van), you are at TDC of the exhaust stroke.

Rotate the engine until that cylinder is truly at TDC, don't go by the timing gauge. You should reach a "dead area" where the piston doesn't really move further up or down. This should be your true TDC.

Look at your timing gauge. Find the mark at the backside of the pulley. See if it lines up with the 0 on your timing gauge. If it does, good. If not, make a small mark with white out on your timing gauge (also mark the notch on the pulley).

Rotate the distributor until the notch lines up with the middle of the firing edge of the rotor. At this point you have your engine timed at 0 deg. The vacuum unit should be on the right side of the distributor, running parallel with the cooling fan housing (don't know if this makes sense, wish I had a picture for you).

Put the cap back on. #1 tower on the cap should match up with the firing edge of the rotor. Van should fire up at this point, now you need to set the timing.

I don't have time to post the timing procedure, but here's a quick tip...
Best to do this with a digital advace timing light. Set the light to 7.5 BTDC (assuming it's a Fed model, not Cali). The notch on the pully and the mark you made on the timing gauge should line up. This avoids using the timing gauge markings which can be inaccurate.

Hope this helps for now... I have a busy day and can't really post as much as I'd like here. Good luck :D

Fri May 27, 2005 6:06 am

Also make sure that the "white wire" coming from the ECU is on the correct terminal at the coil. It should be at the coil terminal that has the green wire going to the points (or a petronics) on it.

Go here and go to "step #9".

http://www.ratwell.com/technical/EngineRemoval.html

Fri May 27, 2005 6:39 am

Yes the white wire, make sure it is connected to the correct side of the coil, also make sure you have the plugs plugged in correctly, like you don't have the cold start valve plugged into an injector or something. The ends of the plugs should be color coded with what you are plugging into, meaning the cold start valve is a certain color so the plug for it will be that color also. That's the way it was supposed to be anyways, over time plugs may have been changed, ect. but it should mostly be intact.
He's a tip I use for my plug wires, I take a Sharpie Perminant black marker (I keep several around the house) and I mark the posts with each plug number under where the plug wires go on the cap. That way if I unplug the wires in a hurry(like broken down)I can quickly put them back on the cap the correct way. I've been doing this for years(when I had cars that broke down allot more) so now when I replace the cap it's just a habit the mark the posts.

Mon May 30, 2005 8:54 pm

Thanks all- the white fuel injection wire was on the wrong side of the coil (needs to be on the - side) and that was all- got her up and running and had a great weekend.