318 LA rebuild after losing a valve seat

AJ/FormS said

The way your post is written;
this quote ;

applys to this statement.

So I am not referencing the Distributor or timing at all.
And so to me, this post;

makes perfect sense.
At least to me,lol.

And we all know, that the distributor timing has nothing to do with cam timing; you can drop the D in any where you want to and just synchronize #1 TDC Compression to any tower that the rotor is pointing to when the reluctor lines up with a vane, any vane, and then that tower will be #1.
Of course there are some tower choices, that are better than others.

Click to expand...

Oh boy, I owe you a huge apology. My pops came over today to help out with the car, and I was asking if he could help explain how the cam could be off by a tooth or so. After some back and forth, he realized I was talking about the gear on the camshaft that mates with the distributor, and then I realized that you were referring to the cam gear in the timing set (right?). In which case, makes perfect sense as to how it could be installed a tooth off (or way off). So, thanks for your patience and I'm sorry to put you through all that!

If it's any consolation, I'm 99.9% certain I installed the timing set correctly. I confirmed with a square to ensure the dots were perfectly inline and straight up and down. Now, I understand that there are still many variables involved, but at least the timing set was done right.

Moving on to the park pawl problem. I had him manipulate the shifter while I watched the linkage, and I could see a ton of slop - especially where the rod coming from the shifter meets the linkage. I held that in place so it could pivot, and the linkage was moving much more efficiently. I need to look underneath to see if there's a fastener missing, allowing it to move so much. We got it out of park and with the driver side rear wheel in the air, I could just barely move it, but with a lot of resistance. We tried moving the linkage in all shift positions and I could barely move the wheel in all positions except park. So at least the park pawl isn't jammed anymore.

Now, did I mention that I had drained the trans fluid at the time I removed the engine? The car has been rolled a few times here and there since then, could the lack of fluid be contributing to this problem?? I certainly don't think it helping... My pops was stumped - he's a Chevy 3 speed manual guy.