So I took my distributer out for an intake but forgot to mark where the rotor was pointed and when I put the distributor back in it’s pointed away from engine and more at the passenger seat so then I decided to try to get to tdc and when I tried to rotate the engine by hand the harmonic balencer bolt just got loose I need some help

 

You should be rotating the engine clockwise... That doesn't loosen the balancer bolt.

Get the engine to TDC on cylinder 1... Then work on distributor position.

 

Caution!

Rotation one time around back to TDC will put you on the #6 cylinder.
Rotate a Second time to be back at TDC on the #1 Cylinder.

 

If you're worried about the distributor bolt, you can always bar the engine over with a screwdriver on the flywheel/flexplate.

It's a lot easier to bar the engine over if all the spark plugs are out. With all the plugs out, put some tissue paper into the #1 plug hole and bar the engine over by hand. When the tissue paper gets blown out, you'll know that #1 is on the compression stroke. Line up the timing marks on the balancer then drop the distributor in with the rotor pointing in roughly the 5 o'clock position. You may need to use a flat tip screwdriver to turn the oil pump drive so that it will line up with the distributor.

That will only get you into a ballpark range for a distributor install. There a lot more involved to get the timing close to perfect so that you won't have to fiddle with it very much once the engine starts.

 

thank you for this I tried it yesterday with only spark plug one out I could not rotate it at all

 

just got it done your a life saver I ended up just taking off the valve covers and finding compression stroke that way then I just barely rotated to zero and then my distributor dropped right in pointing at the #1

 

I put a VC05 from autuzone in my 85 TPI IROC. My dist would not fire so I put in new one and got spark. Turned dist ccw until car started and timing read 16 btdc with EST connected. I try to start up after a few days and no start unless I turn the dist
I need help with this no start condition and also the procedure to set timing to 6 btdc with EST disconnected.

 

Timing is set with EST disconnected. Ignore what the timing is when the EST is connected because the computer is controlling it depending on what it wants.

 

The car takes a while to start when cold. So, I'm wondering if there is somewhere l can purchase a cold start injector and cold start thermal time switch at reasonable prices. 1985 5.0 TPI IROC Z.