[PonchoV8]

I bought this car with a bad distributor, and picked up a used replacement at Pull-A-Part from a "similar" car. I didn't pay attention to the year, nor transmission of the donor car, but it was a V6 626 of similar vintage. I think I even used the old dist cap from the defective original dist.

I installed this dist in Oct and timed it by ear. That was fine until temps started rising above 80 degrees this summer. Now the car is overheating and I find that the timing is advanced by about 25 degrees! Yeah, that'll do it. So I tried retarding it, but this is not working. Turning the dist yields either a below zero retard or a 25 degree advance (both are off the scale, but advance is much worse). There's no in between. Actually there's a TINY in between where the car will stall completely--not much help. It's about a millimeter of difference in between the off-the-scale advance or retard.
There's no setting of the dist that will settle anywhere within the scale of the timing marks at the crank. It behaves like two magnets trying to repel each other.

Anybody have any 'sperience with sech?

TIA,

[mike nixon]

You need to jump terminals ten and grd on the aldl commector or hook it up to a scanner.

Verify the idle speed is approximately 650 rpm.


Set the timing @ 10* +/- 1 deg.




the timing should be between 6 -18 degrees after the jumper is removed.


Good luck

[PonchoV8]

Originally Posted by mike nixon

You need to jump terminals ten and grd on the aldl commector or hook it up to a scanner.

Yep, I did that--the jumper from TEN to GND.

Verify the idle speed is approximately 650 rpm.

Got that far too.

Set the timing @ 10* +/- 1 deg.

This was not possible. There are only two settings. One about 25 or greater and one that was about -3. No in between, except where the car wouldn't run. Very weird.

the timing should be between 6 -18 degrees after the jumper is removed.


Good luck

I'm hung up on that timing deal. It just refuses to set ANYWHERE within the timing scale on the crank pulley--jumps across it with a minuscule amount of movement of the dist. It's like Kryton.

[Oreif]

Are you sure the distributor was bad? I know the timing belt can jump on them and cause a lot of weird timing issues.
I would set the crank to 0* of TDC and verify the position of the cam(s). Then verify the distributor is pointing towards #1.

[mike nixon]

Did the balancer slip? IF it did you readings will be way off.

Mike

[PonchoV8]

The timing belt has been done 3 times in 5K miles.

I bought it from a coworker that gave up because three places couldn't figure out why it would die in traffic. I took the dist off and found a crack in the housing at the cam sensor area. I actually pulled the dist apart in my hands with little effort at all.

He paid DEEPLY to have the timing belt replaced TWICE. The first guy broke two bolts off in the block for the water pump doing the timing belt. The second place did the belt again saying it was off several teeth. Since it still had a bad dist, he kept taking it to them and paying them money to not fix it. Then it went to the dealership where they didn't find the problem.

I found it in 30 minutes. But since it still had a leaking pump for a couple of months, we had to replace the timing belt again because it was saturated with antifreeze--and have the water pump fixed. Everything was fine until the heat started building this year.

Now the dist is on the back of the engine so I think the guys never adjusted it when they did the belt and pump. That's when I found the advanced situation. I never adjusted it by light when I installed it last Oct, so it's probably always been set there. It has always detonated on big hills even though we use premium in it.

I'm still wondering if the dist could be the wrong application for the year.

[mike nixon]

It's possible, I'd be more apt to look towards other PCM related controls. Possibly The knock sensor, Crank sensor or Cam sensor circuits. Mike

[PonchoV8]

Okay, I'm thinking of taking it to the Mazda dealer to have them do a diagnostic on it--$80. Not sure I could troubleshoot the sensors.

[mike nixon]

Doug that'll be money well spent.