Oil/Dist drive gear!

[69signetv8]

I have two different manuals with different instructions? When #1 Cyl is TDC on compression stroke, one book states that the drive gear slot for the distributor should be "parallel" to the camshaft. (I take that means fore & aft)The other states the slot should be facing or (pointing) to #1 cyl.
Does it really matter? I would think not, due to only #1 maybe off a tad during distrubuter timing setup? :-k

I just want too be sure, and do it right the first time.
Thanks.

 

[Dusterb318]

I set mine so it was facing #1 cylinder but like you said it really doesn't matter as long as the rotor and the terminal on the cap are oriented right.

 

[340mopar]

If you want #1 spark plug in the factory spot point the slot towards #1 cylinder. But if you don't care were #1 is on your cap you can put the slot any were you want. For example when I did my first SB Mopar I did not know that when the timing marks on the timing gears are lined up that it was #6 firing not #1 so my distributor was 180 degree out. I didn't bother pulling the distributor I just moved the wires around the cap 180 degrees. That bugged the crap out of a buddy of mine because he is so anal about everything being right. To this day he still askes me if that distributor is still "wrong" in that truck, I normally would have changed it but I have fun now with it because I tease my him about it.

Chuck

 

[340Dart]

For the small block mopars the slot points to number 1 cly. For big blocks it's parallel. But as long as thier is enough room for the vacuum canister to move around so it doesn't hit anything, so you can time it, it shouldn't matter.

Fred B

 

[69signetv8]

Well that's pretty straight forward! Thanks guys. :thumbup: