You should be able to turn the distrubutor counter-clockwise, against the vacuum advance spring, with the engine stopped. The vacuum advance should have ported vacuum to it; if you connected it to manifold vacuum, you will get full advance as soon as the engine starts and the distributor will not move further by hand. Watch the movement while some starts the engine- if the distributor moves immediately, you have manifold connected to the advance chamber, otherwise, it sounds like something is binding the mechanism.
Harvester
