well, i think i really screwed things up, hopefuly it's nothing more than timing, but it might be "MORE" so here's the deal. I went to change the pickup coil in my distributror, and everything was going just fine, i pulled the distributor, placed it in the soft vice, hammered out the rollpin, took everything apart and paid attention to the order, pulled out the pucoil replaced it, put everything back together found my mark where the distributor and housing was all located and reinstalled the setup. I went to start the car, and it started, ran, (rough) for a minute, then died. So i tried to start it again, and the damn thing would barely start (actually froze for a second) then i backed it off, and hit the starter one more time, this time around it fired up agian, rough idle etc....so i said enough for a night, enough for the car, i'm sick of it, drove it out the hanger door, and got on the highway. once i was on the highway, the car went through first gear mighty slow, then went through second gear just as slow, went it shifted to third the RPM's dropped to 2000 but the car felt like it wanted to stall, but it didn't. I realized that 40 mph was about as fast as i was going to get today, so i put the flashers on and drove back to town (couple miles). After i got to town, i parked the car in the lot (next to the other firebird that apparnetly won't be running for a while) and shut it off...i put the car in park restarted it, and reved the car from under the hood, and from in the cabin and it revved fine, all the way to 4k. Don't know what i did, maybe the timings just off enough that it won't let the car move under load, but i doubt it. What'd i screw up? I'm gonna call AAA and have the car towed to a shop tomorrow and hopefully they'll have the issues fixed by the time friday rolls around and i can drive it home. damn i hate myself right now, it was running better broken than it is right now.

 

did you set the timing

 

just because you marked things, and alighned things back up by eye, doesnt mean its right. It still needs a timing light thrown on and adjusted.

That thing being about 1/16 of an inch off in rotation is about 5 degrees. YES, its that sensative.

 

i know the timing being off can effect the way the engine runs, and at what speeds the engine runs, but will the timing being off also make the egnine "sieze" when you try to start it? or is something mroe major screwed up.

 

when you put the distrub back did you line it up correctly with the oil pump driveshaft?

no oil pressure= seized engine

 

being perfectly honest, i'm not sure...wehen i put the distributor back in, it seemed like it went in pretty easily, like it saw in perfcct (the way it had b4) but i can't be sure...the engine ran fine on the road (no funny noises) and the "shutters," or "Siezes" happened when attempting to start, so if it wasn't in propperly, i'd assume that would have happened (full siezure) once the engine had warmed up, or been running for a while...any more answers? i'm having it towed to the shop, instead of driving it again incase something is majorly wrong.

 

oh ok


i wouldnt call those seizures then

i would call that stalling out

no doubt in my mind that your timing is out of whack

get a light and set it right

(i'm a poet and didnt even know it........shiznit)

 

sounds like timing to me. Yes it will make it buck, shake, backfire, all sorts of things when its out of wack.

You wouldnt even beable to get the distrib hold-down back on if the oil shaft was in the way.

 

but stalling out like the starter wouldn't turn the engine over...or didn't have enough strength to turn it over, hopefully this isn't an issue with the oil pump shaft, since the hold down bolt is on as far as it goes, but hpoefully it's an issue that's somewhat minor and can be sorted out tomorrow...any more feedback is more than welcome...i'm in the low of **** low right now.

 

it might be too advanced, firing too soon when the pistons are on their way up.

 

Definetly timing. Go to Sears, buy a timing light (Like $35) then return it afterward (love the 30 day money back garuantee)

When you set the timing, be sure to disconnect the EST wire.

 

damn, didn't think that a plug firing that far advanced would still have the power to make the engine stop while it's trying to start...that's a lil scary, hopefully i have'nt destroyed the crank yet...eh.

 

well the results are in from the shop. Apparently the guy at the shop wasn't able to adjust the timing because the damn thing was bouncing up and down so bad that he couldn't. He believes that the pickup coil is possibly still screwed up (new or not, and that instead of autozone ya should go to napa or GM for ur parts ... i can agree w/ that) He also says that the car has a bad ignition wire, or multiple bad ignition wires, which is more liekly than i'd like to think, so those are in need of getting changed. Bad thing of course is that he can't get to the car to do any real maitnence on it till next week (after break starts) so it's gonna get the ole' park and lock up routine, followed by a nice batch of removing valuables and tools. I'll get to it next semester, unless i somehow manage to afford another set of plug wires right now, but i don't see that happening any time soon.