I just lined everything up as it came out... went to start it and it started right up but after a few seconds died. Start it up and rev it and return pedal and it dies or atleast sputters terrible. If I hold the throttle at like 1k it runs. If I rev it is sounds and feels way better! I was going to try and do timing as suggested till it sounds “sweet” but it won’t stay idling now. It’s not up to full temp but that shouldn’t effect anything. I guess I might atleast get a base timing with a timing gun but if it won’t idle. The ccv shouldn’t need adjusting after a new distributor should it?

sorry, 88’ xjs v12. Lucas distributor out of a junkyard car. Converted to single coil a few months back. Car was running and idling fine just didn’t have the power and feel. The weights/springs inside mine were stretched and basically stuck and the vacuum advance was also toast. I feel like I had it running good for a car that needed love. So now with the proper part and everything working it needs a new tune. Right before I left and it was almost upto temp it was running a tad better and wasn’t stalling.

if I was one tooth off on installing the distributor would it even run?

I cant recall for sure, but it has 15-16 teeth. So one tooth would be 20+ degrees. Not likely to start.

Get a timing light on it and have the wife-assistant turn her over. See where you’re at.

edit. Crankshaft degrees vs camshaft degrees always confuses me.

ok yeah I’m borrowing a light tomorrow

Well hooked the timing light up and put a little shim in the throttle cap stand to keep the revs right under 1k rpm. If I let it try and idle by itself it wants to quit. So I got under it with the timing light and had a very hard time finding the timing marks on the pulley! Finally in the middle pulley saw 3 black slashes.... I assume that those are the marks? I hardly even noticed them unless I adjusted the timing light then they would move. Anyway... timing light was set at 10btdc... and that’s about where the middle mark was on the scale. So I assume either I didn’t plug a wire in all the way, the magnet isn’t set right or I have a vacuum leak. That wouldn’t make sense those cause it was idling fine before I put this distributor in.

Was I looking at the right thing? Shouldn’t there be actual etched in marks on the pulley?

1986 HE timing marks.

TDC mark is on outer face of pully. Pointing at the belt.

Note this style of indicator is not adjustable in any way. Some apparently are.

Yeah I got the scale but where the heck is the mark? I didn’t see anything with the timing light on 1A...Is it on the outer pulley?


Ive never done timing on any car let alone a jag where you need 2 people to do it

Well I sure couldn’t see any marks like in this pic! Too much rust perhaps...

Hold a wire brush against the running pully and the mark should show up. Likely way off time.

sounds like a fun way to lose a hand. Ha
will give it a try

yeah I think it might be, I took a brush to the pulley and hooked up the timing gun. I am wayyyyy off. Set to 10° btdc I can’t even see the mark, finally moving the degrees I found the mark. To get the thing to line up between 0-10 degrees the light was set to 60 btdc! Set to 40 it goes around that 25-30 mark. So ahh I guess I need to reposition the distributor and move over a tooth? cause it won’t have enough degrees to back off that much... this is all new to me so I want to make sure everything is correct. When I reposition the distributor.... I want to move it a tooth clockwise, correct?