The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Box of Toys (1954 - 235)

I have 216 / 1946. I will send you pictures via email of my distributor. I don't know how knowledgable you are so forgive me if you know this. Your engine is a later model I can tell by the valve cover and side lifter cover. First I would remove the valve cover and turn the engine until you see both valves closed and your at top dead center on the compression stroke. You should also be able to tell on the timming mark on the fly wheel or harmonic ballancer pulley. Then you need to know the firing order. You insert the distributor so that the rotor is at #1 position on the cap. You can rotate the rotor shaft to align the straight blade at the bottom. Then you should have the ability to rotate the body of the distributor to adjust the timming. On mine the vaccum advance and timming mark part is adjustible as I reacall up and down. So you might have to loosen it to get the distributor to insert all the way. You should also check the electrical connection to the points. As I recall the early models had a reversing switch and the points are isolated from the diestributor body.