I recently purchased a 96dodge 1500 pickup and have had several problems which were probably caused by lack of maintenance by the previous owner. I have replaced the plentum gasket which caused me to burn an unbelievable amount of oil. I then had a problem with bad fuel and i reoved and cleaned the fuel rail and injectors and drained the fuel tank and replaced the fuel pump assembly but now it wont crank. Im concerned that my timing seems to be 180 out but i never removed my distributor i need to know which of the three marks on the harmonic balance is actually tdc. Also is it possible that it could have been running if it were 180 out before. Any advice would be appreciated ....thanks

 

Number 1 is marked on the cap. Pull the number one plug, turn the engine until you feel compression coming out the hole. You can stick something in there to find TDC. Remove the cap, and see where the rotor is pointing.

You MUST have the wire for number one cylinder on the marked terminal on the cap. The sensor in the distributor controls INJECTOR timing, not spark. If things are wrong, the injectors will fire at the wrong time, and the engine will run really strange... if at all. It won't run at all if the wires are off by 180. Sure will backfire nicely though.

 

Can u tell me how i can besure if the piston is on the intake stroke or the exhaust stroke if im not sure about whether the distributor is in correctly or not

 

On the compression stroke the pressure will be going out the plug hole, on the exhaust stroke it will be going out the exhaust.

 

Ok thank you guys very much.ill go from there tmmrw

 

You can use a compression tester also for finding TDC on #1 if you don't want to use your finger. Clean the harmonic balancer where the marks are and chalkmark the 0=zero TDC mark for reference.

 

haha! I can speak to this experience!

I did exactly this to verify. IIRC the Haynes manual also describes this. On starting, nothing happened except one backfire. :chuckle:

I pulled the #1 plug and inserted a long socket extension. Turned the engine at the HB. If you have the fan/shroud on...then pretty PITA.

 

One more thing..i installed a manual oil pressure gauge and removed the electroni sending unit.would this keep the engine from starting

 

Nope. PCM doesn't really care. Didn't unplug the cam or crank sensor did you?

 

Yes i unplugged the cam sensor at the distri utor but i d nt know where the crank sensor is