UPDATE/RESOLVED. I had installed the drive gear upside down. The gear goes up.
I've read many threads and I think my problem is I can't get the oil pump shaft in. I must've humped the passenger fender 30 times just now to align the oil pump driveshaft and its getting dark. The oil pump driveshaft seems to have enough play to make lining with the distributor a very tricky and very lucky thing.

It stops about 1/2" above the deck. I figure that's likely the oil pump driveshaft engagement.

I am looking for advice.

I know that I gotta keep playing with it but here's the frustrating part.

It's the same distributor. I took it out to change the pickup and module. I marked the locations of the rotor and the housing to the firewall and lifted it out.

Now the one I thing I did not do was note which side of the drive gear was which when I drove the pin out. But I can't see any difference at all.

Anyway, I noticed the oil pump shaft has a lot of wobble down in the block. I think it's just a matter of luck and I didn't have any today. I got a jack under my car to level it so that the driveshaft wouldn't flop to one side. It's pretty "teetery". I am pretty sure the oil pump driveshaft just isn't lining up perfectly.

I'm handling the distributor by the rotor and housing and trying every little wiggle, shimmy, shake, and nothing.

 

Yep.

Yep.

That's what I do sometimes.

Since it twists as the gears mesh up, you know the general direction it will be. You just need to move it 15 degrees at a time with a long flat blade and try again until POOF, it drops in. Luckily, the pump doesn't need timed, or indexed, just to mate to the dist. shaft.

If it is off one tooth, you'll just need to set timing and be good to go.

 

My MSD distributor fit a lot tighter (less slop) then the factory HEI. Much harder to align. I hope the plastic sleeve/retainer at the oil pump end of the intermediate shaft is not cracked or broken. DON'T do the bump the starter til the dist drops in method. I use the dist itself to rotate the shaft around by a combination of working the dist up and down and rotating the rotor. The dot on the dist gear does not matter if you got it back exactly where it was, because you will align the housing while setting the timing. But I usually align the dot to the rotor myself. That gear has an odd number of teeth. Where this alignment could come in handy is when your set base timing and the housing ends up hitting something on the intake manifold or firewall, but changing it by moving 1 tooth makes you hit something else in the other direction. Then rotating the gear on the dist shaft by 180* will put you halfway in between. Keep messing with it - you'll get it.

 

Thanks very much. Does anybody make a distributor gear that has a skirt on it that would help bring the oil pump driveshaft into the bore of the gear? Seems like a no-brainer.

 

Wait, holy crap. I think I've put the gear on wrong. Should the gear be up by the distributor and or down by the oil pump? I have the gear down by the oil pump but the pictures online are showing it towards the distributor side. I think.

 

All the gears I've ever seen have a 45* chamfer to help guide it on.

Here is a dumb question - did you put the gear on the dist UPSIDE DOWN?

 

Yup. I'm the "no brainer"

 

Another crisis averted!

 

Geez. Wouldnt have guessed it would fit nearly perfectly the other way. Relief.

 

Yeah, you would think that they would have shifted the pin one way so that it would be obvious that the gear was installed wrong.

 

There's a trick to it. You can "walk" the oil pump drive around to where you need it to be.... that method is hard to explain. Here's a vid (this is how I do them):


You can rotate the engine till it drops in:


Here's another method to drop it in:


GD

 

This is the way I do it everytime. Saves you moving the shaft with a screwdriver. and messing with it Mark the base against the manifold, mark the rotor to the dist base and that will get you close enough to start it and fine tune the timing. Once you get a feel for how much you need to lift it out and how much to turn it to catch the next tooth it goes real quick.

 

Went right in. No tricks needed. No fussing. Sheesh. I'm a dope.