How do you go about timing an engine that doesn't run? What needs to be dismantled in order to do it?
Not much needs to be dismantled, maybe not anything. You need to get the #1 cylinder to Top Dead Center (TDC) on the compression stroke. Several ways to do that: * The easiest (if it works) is you put your thumb over the spark plug hole and spin the engine (starter may move too fast, might have to use wrench on the crank nut) until you feel it compressing air, then keep turning until the timing mark indicates TDC. * If you can't be sure of the compression stroke, you have to pull the valve cover and check that both valves are closed. * If you think your timing mark / balancer may have slipped, you need a piston stop (can use a long bolt in place of the spark plug). SLOWLY spin the engine until the piston contacts the stop, mark the balancer by the TDC mark. Then SLOWLY spin the crank the other way until piston touches the stop, and make another mark. Measure halfway between the marks, pull out the stop, and spin the crank until that halfway point matches up with TDC. If your balancer hasn't slipped, you'll have 0 degrees indexed. Most any engine will run with timing set to TDC, but if you want to get closer to a particular setting, just move the crank to indicate whatever initial advance you want. Once you get the crank position where you want it, you simply spin the distributor around until the rotor is aligned with the #1 plug wire terminal in the cap. On points, you can turn the ignition on, and move the dist back and forth, watching for the little spark as the points open, that's when it'll fire the #1 plug. On HEI, I think you'll have to get it running and then use a timing light to get it dead on.
Don't spin the starter, bump it, a little at a time, until you feel compression push your finger out of the plug hole. Then position the firing end of the rotor to point at the #1 wire tower on the cap.
timing do what Larry says and then pull the vac line off the vacume advance, set the basic timing, put the vac line back on and then you are in business.
I have an old distributor cap with the #1 tower knocked out, and the hole enlarged to about 1" so I can see the rotor position:TU:
