The masochistic glutton-for-punishment part of my brain got the bright idea that maybe I could make this distributor work:
It came with this engine and I thought maybe I could make it work. Apparently, it’s out of a 232. Unfortunately, I didn’t see a way to clamp it, so I gave up on it. It doesn’t take much these days.
That stupid part of my brain then had the idea that, since the military distributor didn’t have vacuum advance, I’d delete it from the one I have, like so:
I checked the rotor position again (crankshaft was at 5° BTDC, right where the manual says it should be), adjusted the distributor so the rotor was dead on #1.
Fifteen seconds of cranking, and the battery— an Optima Blue Top from 2016— died after being on a charger all night.
Move the Dodge, hook up the cables, crank it. It sounded like it almost wanted to run (it should just @#$&* RUN where the manual says to time it, right??), and then it backfired like usual.
I then went to O’Reilly and Advance Auto for a compression tester so I could have just a flicker of hope of getting this thing out of my yard. Neither had one, so no satisfaction there. Or anywhere pertaining to this thing, really.
I apologize for the whining tone these posts inevitably take when I find yet another way to not fix this truck. It is intensely disappointing and demoralizing, and I hope you can understand.
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