Well i have bad news, I got the motor in the car and running today but i cant seem to bring the timing to the 5 degree mark.

Take a look at these and look where the tang points relative to the 6mm threaded hole:

Looks like you may be a tooth off on the spindle to drive gear making it too retarded (ccw).

Edited January 9, 201213 yr by Blue

This is what I'm referring to supporting the cam tensioner. The attached file is a couple of pages from How to Rebuild Your Nissan & Datsun OHC Engine.

The wooden block is what your talking about in the rebuild guide?

Take a look at these and look where the tang points relative to the 6mm threaded hole:

Looks like you may be a tooth off on the spindle to drive gear making it too retarded (ccw).

Yeah i may be off one tooth. Damn!!!! so does that mean i have to unbolt the oil pump and restab the spindle?

The wooden block is what your talking about in the rebuild guide?

Yes, it is.

gotch yah. when i had the front cover off i just put the chain on with the cam and the crank shaft, then i put the tensioner on. So i didnt have to have any support to hold the tensioner from coming out.

You may want to purchase the book to give you some guidance, with one caveat: get your torque specs from the FSM. I seem to recall some of the torque specs being off in the book.

kool i got it figured out. have full adjustment within the timing marks range. works great now. just needed to rotate the distributor/oil pump shaft one tooth over. thanks for the help everyone!!

I know this is an old thread but.. I am having the same issue, Did you move it a tooth CW or CCW?

Somebody on this site has described a way to adjust the quill from the top.  I think it might have been CO.  Used some sort of rubber band assembly to hold the quill up from below, then just pushed it down against the rubber with a pair of long-nose pliers off of the gear and turned it to and fro util it came up in the right spot.

The short answer is - re-insert and check, with the timing pointer on zero, and the #1 piston at TDC.  Best to get everything set correctly, even the cam sprocket.

You could also logic it out, knowing that the distributor turns counterclockwise.