Slick 60's

Hi! The previous owner of my 65 installed a 302 roller rocker motor from a 1988 Thunderbird. He switched it to points. I installed new points, cond., cap, rotor, wires, and plugs. Now I'm trying to set the timing and cant get it to run. When I have the #1 plug ( passenger side front) at t.d.c the timing marks on the balancer are way passed 10 atdc. Any ideas how this is possible? Sheared keyway? Thank you for any input!

Which firing order are you using? Because the "5.0 roller motors" do not use the same firing order as the early 289/302

http://www.302w.com/Firing-Order.aspx

***the other thing to check is the drive gear that meshes to the cam on the end of the dist. shaft,because of the alloy used in the roller cams, roller cams use a different gear than conventional cams. Using the wrong one will end with no teeth left on the dist. drive gear.....

http://www.stangtv.com/tech-stories/ele ... e-details/

Q: what year of distributor did he use? If the dizzy cam out of an EFI engine, your'e done, as the ECM is intended to do all the work.....

Being as we are WELL into the new millenium, WTF would anyone want to use points??

Thanks Jamesdfo. I was wondering why he would change it also. I was using the front passenger side as #1. The truck ran fine when I got it a few weeks ago and just wouldn't start one morning. I am confused by the balancer not being at 0 deg when the #1 piston is at tdc. Is this something strange? Thanks again!

How are you measuring TDC with the cylinder. If you do not have a dial micrometer to find the exact TDC, you may or may not be where you think you are. It would be easy to verify a sheared key by pulling the balancer.

Also I wasn't very clear here. It quit running and wouldn't start again until I replaced the points ect. I used the same firing order as the previous owner and tried the other 302 firing order also. I will need to rent a puller after work and check out the key.

All late model 5.0's used a serpentine drive belt setup, if this has been changed back to a V belt setup, then it becomes necessary to also change the waterpump back to a conventional (as opposed to the reverse rotation pump used with serpentine drive). Then there is the classic "adding an older timing cover so as to be able to run a mechanical fuel pump".
I only bring these points up because if someone has been in there changing all the front peripheral stuff back to earlier V belt/mech pump stuff, they may have changed the timing marker as well??
One more thing to check in any case:)

Thank you Jamesdfo! That is some great info!

Alright so tonight I pulled the harmonic balancer off and looked to see if it spun. As I was pulling it off I noticed the pointer looked kind of crude. Turns out it was home made and way off. I put the motor at tdc and made the 10 deg mark and got it to run ok but I kept losing spark. After a lot of screwing around my Dad suggested running a hot wire to the coil just to skip the ign. Boom ran perfect!! one of the previous owners cut, soldered, crimped and twisted the ign wires. Thanks a ton for the info Jamesdfo! Still need to check the water pump to see if its backwards but atleast it runs.!!

jamesdfo wrote:


Being as we are WELL into the new millenium, WTF would anyone want to use points??

Exactly!

I run that motor in my Capri. And older style distributor with magnetic pickup and vacuum advance hooked too an MSD box was the ticket... Never had an ignition problem.

Nic

Just to expand a bit on what James posted earlier, the 5.0 used in the '88 Thunderbird would have been the non-H.O. version, which actually used the 1-5-4 (i.e. 289/302) firing order. I only mention that because this is one of the exceptions where a "roller 5.0" could actually have the earlier firing order (Crown Vic/Grand Marquis/Town Car is another). Though that won't mean much at this point unless it's running the original cam.

As for the water pump, there were applications from that era that used a standard rotation, but an '88 Thunderbird would indeed have one serpentine belt and therefore should be a reverse rotation. Again, that's only if it's original.

Hope that helps!