New Dizzy Cap and rotor. Now the car wont start!

[ninjazombiemaster]

Today I replaced my distributor cap and rotor. I have a pertronix electronic ignition in their. I touched absolutely nothing else, at all. I have checked the firing order about a dozen times, but the car absolutely will not start anymore. I drove it about 5 minutes before doing the change. The car cranks, and after cranking, it actually does fire a few times like its running on two cylinders for a few seconds before dying. So there has to be some ignition happening. I pulled the spark plugs, they look fine. After all, the car just ran. What could I be missing?

[geezer]

Have you made a visual comparison between the old and new caps and rotors? If so and nothing is readily apparent, try putting the old rotor back in and if that does nothing try swapping the old cap back on as a process of elimination. If that doesn't get results you will have to use the standard troubleshooting flow chart to track down the problem. Good luck!

[ninjazombiemaster]

Thanks for the reply. Old parts are identical, just more worn... Putting them back on I still had no luck.. BUT! While I was working on that I had an idea. What I did was crank the engine over TDC and noticed that the rotor was not pointing at #1, but at #4. I offset the wires by one, counter clockwise and it fired right up. I don't know if somehow I offset them in the wrong spot (more likely) or if somehow TDC offset during the installation (less likely).

[madkaw]

Yep- you screwed up- it happens

[ninjazombiemaster]

Yep- you screwed up- it happens

Haha, indeed it does! Good way to make an easy job frustrating..