[Wild Bill]

sounds like you may have multiple issues of which only the timing chain has been resolved.

Look for one or more of these to be causing you problems some of which have already been mentioned:

-Needs valve job
-Flat cam/bent pushrod/broken rocker or stud
-Vacuum leak from carb, cracked intake, bad gasket, cracked hose, bad power brake booster, bad pcv valve
-Worn out/stuck mechanical advance
-Worn rings/cylinders
-Marginal fuel pump
-Water in gas
-Carb tune
-Coil, plugs, wires
-all of the above plus what ever I couldn't think of

We can't see it or fix it from here. You have to dig in and check or eliminate all possibilities like you have started to do. Borrow known good parts.

One way to remember which way to turn the dist to advance is to think of the vac adv canister as an arrow head pointing the direction to advance.

Bill

[70temp455]

Originally Posted by Wild Bill

-Needs valve job
-Flat cam/bent pushrod/broken rocker or stud
-Vacuum leak from carb, cracked intake, bad gasket, cracked hose, bad power brake booster, bad pcv valve
Checked for Vacumn leaks (but I need to do it again since I swapped intakes)
Old intake does not appear to be cracked.
New Gaskets, most hoses are new, except to the brake booster and the Booster is holding a Vacumn, PCV isw
-Worn out/stuck mechanical advance
Need to pull and re-drop the Distributor so I'll look it over real well.
-Worn rings/cylinders
Don't know, Compression Test indicates a fairly worn out engine
-Marginal fuel pump
Possible, I have one in the shed I could swap.
-Water in gas
Brned it all up and went and got 5 gallons of fresh gas
-Carb tune
Newly rebuilt, but seems to like 1 to 1-1/2 turns out on Idle mixture screws
-Coil, plugs, wires
Coil is Used I have 3 or 4 other used ones I could try. Plugs and wires are new.
-all of the above plus what ever I couldn't think of
All or none of the above.

Well, I'm closer and yet no closer !
I put the Edelbrock Performer intake on and it seems better , like it wants to Idle, yet the timing mark indicates in the 28-32 degree area.
When I put the new timing chain and sprockets on, The mark was on "0", Rotor pointing about 1' oclock (towards the steering wheel) and both dots on the spockets were TDC at the top. So this indicates that the Timing mark is correct. It was getting Late and Dark so I had to call it quits for the night.
I really wish I could rebuild this engine but I have nowhere to do it.
Andy

[70temp455]

Prior to all the recent issues I could not turn the Distributor forward enough to get the timing up past 12 Degress. So I pulled and re-drppoed the distributor One gear tooth back (CCW) and therefore I then needed to turn the Dist. somewhat CCW to get #1 to line up with the rotor (now about 12 oclock) and therefore be able to rotate the dist forward (CW) to advance the timing.
Would this, for some reson, cause the timing mark on the balancer to read a 38ish instead of 12ish. I counted 14 teeth on the gear so each tooth would amount to 25.7 degrees (26 + 12 = 38)
I think, just to keep my scrambled brain straight, I am going to reset the Timing mark on the Balancer to TDC and re-drop the Dist where it should be.
Last night I noticed that there didn't appear to be as much fuel in the (Clear Plastic) filter I have between the tube from the Pump and the carb when trying to get it running. At one point it started but sounded off, and then picked up some fuel and started to run better for a few seconds before dropping off again. It was a very similar type sound as the day it first started running crappy (before the Carb abd Dist swap), SO I ordered an NEW AC Delco Fuel pump.
Hope this get's it done.
Andy