SurplusFan98
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- LA
Hey all,
I have a 97 4.0 Manual, and my distributor is squealing. I understand that must be the bearings going bad, so I've bought another and I'm getting ready to swap. I'm not a mechanic, and I've never worked on a distributor or anything timing related before. Trying to understand the process as clearly as I can, but in my head this seems pretty simple. I'm worried I'm oversimplifying, so I need a sanity check.
The new distributor comes with a plastic pin in it to keep it in a particular orientation when installed. It orients the rotor between 5 and 6 o'clock which looks like it lines it up to the #1 plug spot on the cap. I verified that my old distributor has a hole in the distributor body where that plastic pin would have originally been. Since that's true, wouldn't the process essentially be:
I have a 97 4.0 Manual, and my distributor is squealing. I understand that must be the bearings going bad, so I've bought another and I'm getting ready to swap. I'm not a mechanic, and I've never worked on a distributor or anything timing related before. Trying to understand the process as clearly as I can, but in my head this seems pretty simple. I'm worried I'm oversimplifying, so I need a sanity check.
The new distributor comes with a plastic pin in it to keep it in a particular orientation when installed. It orients the rotor between 5 and 6 o'clock which looks like it lines it up to the #1 plug spot on the cap. I verified that my old distributor has a hole in the distributor body where that plastic pin would have originally been. Since that's true, wouldn't the process essentially be:
- Manually crank the engine until I can get the old distributor to line up the holes for the pin. Maybe drop a bolt or nail in there to be sure it passes through
- Put the trans in gear so that the engine won't turn from that point
- Pull out the old distributor, clean everything up
- Drop in the new distributor with a new gasket, making sure that the rotor is back in the original spot (or very close)
- Punch out the plastic pin, button everything up and test