The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Distributor Wiring

I have a 58 Chevy Apache with a 235 ci 6 cylinder engine. I need the distributor wiring information for which wire goes in which cylinder. The shop manual only shows for 8 cylinder. I also assume that cylinder 1 is the one in the front closest to the radiator. Be nice, I'm new at this. [LIST]

Welcome!

I can't remember off hand, but the shop manual does have it. Look in another section. There's a 6 part and an 8 part to the engine section in the manual. Also maybe you can look in the engine electrical section for the dist. Also do a search on this website for "distributor" or Firing order" etc.., in the "Engine and driveline" "Lounge" or "Electrical" forums.

That said. One of the experts will come right behind me that know the order off hand!

216, 235, and 261 firing order is 1-5-3-6-2-4, with the number 1 cylinder nearest the radiator.

Thanks for the #1 cylinder location and the firing order. Now I need the corresponding information for the distributor cap. In other words, how do I know which location on the cap is for cylinder 1. Is it marked? The cap is keyed. Can you tell me where number 1 location is from the key in a clockwise direction? I looked again and this is not in the shop manual.

one of the guys here once said to remember the firing order just remember this:

15 too young
....36 too old
.........24 just right

on my 216 dist cap there is no # 1 marked, but the manual says to bring # 1 up on the compresion stroke (remove #1 spark plug hold thumb on hole while cranking motor feel air blowing out your there) turn motor a little more and see the flywheel mark and pointer line up(inspection hole right rear of motor)now if dist.is still in it should point to #1 or in your case 11 oclock if 12 oclock is the tab you talk about. just before or to left of the front cap hold down.
this should be in your manual and maybe told better. good luck

I assume you took the cap or the hole dist. off and turned the engine over. What you need to do is trun the engine over by hand till the timing "ball" shows in the window by the starter. Your rotor is now pointing at #1 or #6. Wire it and try to start it. If it backfires #1 is straight cross on the cap. Just rewire from there. If you have help you can pull #1 plug put your thumb on the hole and feel for the air shooting out on the compressiion stroke. that will show you the correct spot every time.

Mine is in the socket toward the front of the truck.

OK, thanks to everyone. I thought it would be more straight forward: plug this wire into this socket and run to cylinder 1, etc. :o I looked through the shop manual again and found the references to the method suggested. This site is the best I have ever used. I learned to not take the wires off without labeling them.

Also, distributor rotates clockwise. You will need to know that.

That was me Brian :p

FWIW ; we just went through this on t'other old Chevy truck list and the manual says to put # 1 plug wire @ 6:00 , even though I recall it usually being @ 2:00 over the years .

I used the take the #1 spark plug out and rotated engine method until it was on the compression stroke. Then kept rotating until the timing ball was lined up. I had the wires wrong. As soon as I put them right, the truck fired up. First time it has been started in 6 years. I had replaced gas tank, fuel pump and rebuilt the carbuerator before I got to this point. Thanks to everyone. Now on to all the electrical problems I have when the lights are on.