Hey guys, it's Monday, and, as I promised, an update:
It's pouring rain today (Seattle, go figure) so I wasn't excited to work on the truck but I did some stuff. I tried to start it, it fired a couple weak fires and then nothing. Tried putting some gas down the carb. No luck.
I began the compression tests at the #6 cylinder. Why? It was easy to get to. I opened up 6, 4, and 2. All showed compression between 120 and 130. I also did 1 and 3, same thing, 120-130. The right bank with 6, 4, and 2 all had very wet cylinders. I cleaned the plugs with a wire wheel and reinstalled. The left bank with 1 and 3 were drier, but not dry.
The truck behaved oddly when turning over. It would turn slowly, then sometimes pick up speed, sometimes not. I had voltage at 13.25 or better as I was jump starting it from another of my running vehicles. After a long, long time, a large number of start attempts, it began to come alive. With my son in the cab hitting the starter, I was using spray starting fluid, but I noticed that open throttle it would start to fire. I kept pumping at it while he kept at the starter and eventually got it going again. I kept throttle open, it ran rough for the first few minutes and eventually smoothed out. I eventually got it warmed up enough to idle, checked timing (because I had moved it some).
BUT... when I put it in reverse to back out, it died. Then, it wouldn't crank over but maybe a couple times. I had disconnected the jumper cables because I was going to test drive it.
So... could it possibly run if the timing was 180 degrees out? Would the timing mark show with a timing gun correctly if it was 180 out? Wouldn't it exhibit backfiring if it was 180 out? My mechanic friend, his name is Eric, recommends I go through the timing process again. I'll do this tomorrow, as it's dark and rainy here today.
Would it be worth it to just move the distributor 180 and test again?
