I have almost completed my rebuild of the top half of the little 305. It was'nt till after I got the whole thing almost completely put together again I realized that I had'nt marked the distributor position before I took it apart. Any suggestions for setting the distributor right after this oversight?

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86 Z28
305TPI
Stock, but with potential!

 

yeah it's easy to do, match the dots on the 2 gears, most sets say to set to dot to dot, but check your gear makers instructiosn and a manual, after the 2 gears are dot to dot rotate them till both dots are straight up then set the rotor to point to #1 post on the cap. then all you have to do is install the distributor and it should fire or be close enough to move a little and get to fire.

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ICON Motorsports
1st & 3rd
MM Black Diamond 538 F&AM

 

If you already have the timing cover and harmonic balancer on the engine then it's not real convenient to take it all back apart to watch the timing gears. Instead just line up the harmonic balancer to the timing tab and point the rotor at #1. You've got a 50-50 chance of getting it right. If it snorts and backfires when you try to start it, then you are 180 off, so take the distributor out and point it toward #6.
Or you can take off a valve cover and look at the rocker arms on #1 instead of guessing. When you are at #1 TDC both rockers will be completely closed.

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91 Z28
Come see The Vicious...

 

lol, 50-50 shot of a chance of screwing something else up.

How about the easiest way of all (except ede's if you have the front cover off) is to take out #1 spark plug. If you have a friend handy, have him put his finger over the #1 hole. When it's on the compression stroke it will blow his finger off. You can accomplish the same thing w/ a paper/cloth/whatever plug if you're by yourself. Once you're on the compression strok, just stop w/ the tab pointing at the mark or just before it, and stab the distributor in.