Hey Everyone, hopefully someone can help me. Ive been online all day tring to find any info on this. I have an '86 Cimarron and I cant get the distributor out. I got everything out of the way, Cap, Rotor, the 2 electrical connections. I figured there would have been a bolt with tab to loosen to pull it out...nothing! HELP! How the heck does it come out?? Please, any info will help!! Thankyou!!
which motor, I have a shop manual and should be able to give you the instructions from there
Hey Wayne, thanks for your reply. Its the 2.8L V6. Well I feel like an idiot now. I went back out to the car on a mission knowing there has to be something holding the distributor down. So I ripped the factory intake tube out to get a better look at the bottom of the distributor. Sure as sh*t there it was. A bolt with a tab right at the bottom. I marked everything the best I could and pulled the old distributor out and put the new one in. Put the rotor, cap, wires back on.....and now she just turns over and wont fire. The timing is waaaaaaaaay off. So I f'ed something up. Thats gonna be tomorrow's project. Pull the distributor back out and go one tooth at a time till it fires. Awesome huh......urgh.
If it's like mine, you can only go 180 degrees off
Actually turning it in small increments is what I suggest.YOU will know if its 180 out backfire,and once u get it with in a degree or two or maybe more it should fire and then dial it in with a timing light.Make sure the engine is warmed up for the final adjustments.Unless u wanna cheat and pull the #1 plug rotate the crank until it is TDC with the distributor in place,check ur cap to the rotor button alignment.Either way about a half hour I got mine by myself.I cheated tho put a crow bar on the clutch pedal so I could lean in and turn the ignition over so I could make adjustments faster.
Wayne & Ron, thankyou so much for your help. I looked at it this morning and I think my plug wires might be on the cap wrong. Do you guys have the firing order? I wanna just make sure thats all right first cause who knows maybe I messed up the wires and the distributor is right. The wires that are on the car are numbered so I really hope the previous mechanic that did the tune up went by the numbered wires. Cause just looking quick the "C" wire (coil wire) was not on the top of the cap?? It should be right on top right? So if I could get the firing order I can just trace back the wires first. If the wires are right then all I was gonna do is pull up the distributor and just go one tooth at a time, once it gets in the right spot it will fire right? Then I can just bring it to a friends with a light to fine tune it? Cant wait to go outside, its flurrying out and so freakin windy...urgh. Seems like EVERYTIME i'm working on a car its freezing out! LOL Good ol' New England!
Looking at the engine from the front #1 at the firewall side then #2 coming towards the rad(hood latch) firing order is 1,2,3,4,5,6 this is for 86 2.8 engine.And yes the coil should be the CENTER of the cap(unless I am dead wrong) .I would crank the engine by hand,remove the #1 plug crank the engine by hand untill the cylinder reaches the top(just before the downstroke) and then pull the cap off and look to see where the rotor button is and then,loosen the distributor and rotate it to line up as close to the #1 with it on the cap.This is a trial and error thing but will work.If you get it close enough it should almost fire,or fire up.Do this in very small increments.
Ron, thank you so much. I'm so close to getting her to fire. I just went one tooth at a time and I got it to where it sounds like it really wants to start, but when I move it a tooth earthier way it makes it worse. I also tried advancing an retarding the timing while I had it on the tooth that really sounded like it was it. Still nothing. So I'm gonna go play around alittle more with it. If I cant get it to fire I'm gonna have to just find TDC on #1. Then where ever the rotor is pointing start my #1 plug wire there right?
Finding tdc on #1 is easy crank the engine by hand,have the plug removed.I put a longggg screw driver on the cyldr and as it comes up for compression the tool will come to the highest point.Now pull the cap look to see where the rotor button is and adjust the distrib(loosen it and turn so,the #1 lines up as close as possible to relation to it.Then try cranking it.I found this to a tedious task and the almost cranking is annoying.I did mine like above and eventually gave up on the tdc and turned in 1/4 increments till I got it running.Hope this helps.And here is a link of where 1 is by my haynes.
