A while back (when the car was still running) I had some ticking from the rockers, so I tightened them down. It ran a couple times after that, maybe, and now it barely wants to turn over.

Charged battery + jumper cables to my Jeep Cherokee and it still barely spins a couple times, then does nothing.

Can the rockers be too tight, not allowing the motor to spin? Surely there's enough juice there to fire it up.

I may have screwed up the timing, too. Since it won't turn over, and I don't have a timing light, can someone point me in a direction of how to get the timing to where it needs to be? 84 5.0 carbureted.

I'll gladly take links to other threads regarding these, I searched and didn't find anything that really answered these directly.

 

Rockers too tight will hang the valves open and make it easier to turn, if anything.

 

timing could make it hard to turn over. try disconnecting the coil wire and see if it spins.

 

I'll give that a shot. Can you explain how that would cause it to turn over slowly? I know very little about this stuff, just trying to understand.

Thanks for the responses, guys.

 

If it's advanced too far then while the piston is still coming up on the compression stroke the mixture will light off and try to force it backwards.

 

Don't know if it changes anything, but it doesn't even act like it's firing at all. And I pulled the carburetor off last night to rebuild, and for giggles decided to try and crank it and no change. So even when I know it's not getting fuel, it still doesn't crank quick enough to catch if it was getting fuel.

 

Check the starter wiring and if all the connections are good then you need a new starter.