I pulled the oil pump shaft and rotated it 180 degrees and reassembled it. Moving all plugs back to original position 153624

 

Edited May 21, 20168 yr by Djanssen

If you didn't find the notch on the pulley and set it to zero it may still be wrong.  You can be off by one gear tooth.

There's a procedure in the FSM, Engine Mechanical chapter, Assembly section that describes all of this, with pictures.  Whoever put the engine together was not using the manual, apparently..

That would be me

yeah I couldn't find the notch on the pulley

Edited May 21, 20168 yr by Djanssen

Oops.

You really need to find that notch.  The notch is placed so that you'll know exactly where TDC of #1 is.  And TDC is what timing is referenced to.  If the notch is wrong, your damper may be failing.  Besides that, without the notch you won't be able to set timing.  And timing is very important on these engines, they have a tendency to knock/detonate.  You can't just turn the distributor until t sounds right, like an old US V8 engine.

Lay under the driver's side with a 27mm socket for turning the crank nose bolt.  Turn it towards the driver's side until this mark comes down to the bottom.  get some kind of paint, White-Out or nail polish.  A magic marker would work to I guess and mark it up real good so you can see it from the top side.  The bottom right picture, "Timing Mark".

When you get everything to TDC, zero, take the distributors cover off check to see if everything is lined up the stator's points and the rotor's to each other.  The distance too by loosening those screws.

 

here's the link to Blue's Tech Tips where I got the pictures for you to look at.  I did this to mine and it makes a difference.  Thanks Blue. 

http://atlanticz.ca/index.php/tech-tips.html

http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/distributorrebuild/index.html

 

  On 5/21/2016 at 9:40 PM, Djanssen said:

I pulled the oil pump shaft and rotated it 180 degrees and reassembled it. Moving all plugs back to original position 153624

 

One reason its not starting is the shaft is not 180 degrees out. Its more than that. So if you rotate another 180, you are still off.

  On 5/21/2016 at 10:59 PM, siteunseen said:

 

When you get everything to TDC, zero, take the distributors cover off check to see if everything is lined up the stator's points and the rotor's to each other.  The distance too by loosening those screws.

 

 

Juts a quick note. Picture in Jason's link is of a ZX distributor which uses a different style magnetic pickup coil ( Bottom mount GM HEI style )  )  and a stator and reluctor.

OP dizzy is original Z style which uses a side pickup coil and a VR Reluctor. California models have one pickup coil and some Federal models have two:

Early Z reluctor and VR pickup coil:

^ Air gap for early style dizzy's with the VR pickup is critical. FSM spec is .02 to .4mm or .008" to .016". Use a Copper or non-magnetic feeler gauge to set gap. I prefer to adjust to the minimum gap possible. VR pickup's lose signal strength very quickly as the gap increases. Lower gaps will provide a stronger and cleaner signal to Trignition box.

Thanks CMan, I had my blinders on. 

If you don't have a 27mm socket you can pull all the plugs out and roll the car back and forth to slowly turn the motor (pulley) to find the notch.  You might want to lightly sand that rotor button's copper edge too, every little bit helps.  Good luck.

 

For the record, the distributor adjustment procedures are described in the Engine Electrical section.  All of these checks and measurements are easy and can be done within an hour.  20 minutes if you've done them before.

With that mind, plus the incorrectly installed distributor drive spindle, DJ may want to recheck valve lash.  And cam timing (notch and groove) while the valve cover is off.  If the valves don't open because lash is wrong, or valves are bent because cam timing was off the engine won't run right.  No suction and/or no compression.