Please help, or at least confirm that I'm screwed.
Yesterday I spent the majority of the day trying to get the new
engine in my 80 westy cranked.
It is a 2 liter air-cooled engine that I pulled down to the pistons,
put new rings and heads on it and reassembled. Nothing was done
inside the case and the engine was running when originally pulled for
poor compression.
The problem. It would turn over, spin, try to fire, then backfire and
blow all the vacuum hoses off.
When this would happen I would then put number one back at tdc and
find that the  timing had shifted 180 degrees so number three was
firing in the number one spot.
So I pull out the distributor, turn the gear back, put it all back
together and try to crank again.
It spins, tries to fire, then once again blows off the hoses.
So, silly me, decides that if the engine really wants to have three
at on then who am I to argue.
I move all the wires, retime it for what would in theory be number
three but is now in actuality number one, spin it again.
It tries to crank, blows off the hoses and now has shifted 90 degrees.
I'm frustrated and not sure what is going on.
Do I have an expensive paperweight, or is there some way to correct
whatever is going one without having to disassemble the entire engine.
Onward thru the fog
David Conner
terrapin@halifax.com