timing a slant 6 chrysler

Is it possible the slant 6 is ONE distributer TOOTH Notch out of Time, They are KNOWN to be TUF Engines that will perform and start in Nearly All conditions ,,, As Long As I have Owned this 300 Massey Combine I have suspected It was FIRING TOO Early , But have Resisted Moving the Distributor ,, IT IS COCKED NEARLY AS FAR AS IT CAN GO one way , AND IT HAS RUN OK in the past. Always Made Me Wonder if It was going to start . Once started , It seemed to Work OK ..Although a bit Bratty ( Yankn the Governor And Giving it Hale )When Working thru a hard Pull... But honestly It is Not The Fuel mizer the 1968 300 Massey is .... Son Came over today , and together we made that slant 6 Fire up... None Of Us Are Truly satisfied with how it Runs ,After new MSD coil , rebuilt carb, New points and 2nd condensor out of parts drawer , and a swap out of suspect spark plug wire, all improved the Way it ran, but it still don't seem RIGHT .. changing 3 resisters made no difference ..

Those were (are) good old engines; I've had three, and there's something wrong somewhere to have starting problems. There's a club; their site is slantsix.org, and it has an engine forum. Try them, they'll probably get a charge out of finding out the slant 6's were also used as industrial and ag engines. Good luck.

if your sure the timing is advanced to much and there isn"t any room turn the distributor to retard it turn engine the direction it run in until (#1 plug wire post in dist.cap) lines up with rotor button,turn engine backwards a small amount remove coil wire so engine want try to start, take a test light grd.it to engine, switch ign. on touch probe to dist. wire that is run from coil to points it shouldn"t light turn engine fowards slowly until test light lights up the points just opened,if i remember correct your firing order is 153624 remove #5 and put #1 in it"s place put #4 in #1 place #2 in #4and so on until you complete moving all 6 wires forward in rotation 1 hole then loosen dist. clamp, rotate dist.slowly in the advance direction #1 toward #4 with test light hooked up until test light lights you will timed back like you started out,but now you should be able to adjust the dist.timing without it hitting.

Years ago when I got mine, it was hard to start, ran good once started. Did some checking and found the resistor was NOT bypassed when starting. Put a Ford style starter solenoid on the firewall just above the starter. Used the Ford solenoid to operate the solenoid on the starter and wired the "I" terminal to bypass the resistor. END of hard starting problems.

That starter has SOOOOO much to turn and draws the battery voltage down so low there is not enough left to make a hot spark for starting.

Can't help on the timing issue, but I believe if you fix the starting issue, the timing will be OK.

Hope this helps.

Timing chain really worn or jumped a cog ???? Just guessing, don't know if it even has one but the symptoms sound like a GM engine I once owned...

I have a Massey grain swather that was bought new in the 1960s with a slant 6. The motor has had a carb kit and a couple sets plugs and points. Otherwise the motor is original and runs like a charm. We swathed over a 1000 acres a year for quite a few years. I still use it to trim the farm yard ans along roads.

Where's your timing light?

Have you checked to see if the mech spark advance works? (COULD be stuck "advanced".)

BTW, the plastic timing gears on the slant 6 have been know to break or get loose/worn around the rollpin hole.

If it "fights" the starter when cranking, suspect that the distributor centrifugal advance mechanism may be stuck in the full advanced position.

To check for this, remove the dist cap and twist the rotor in the direction of normal rotation, using about 10 pounds of twisting pressure.

If the system is free and working, the rotor should twist about 15 degrees, then snap back to the original position when released.
The rotor shaft is a shaft within a shaft, so the shafts need lubrication. In the hollow end of the shaft under the rotor, is a small felt oil wick that is supposed to have a few drops of oil applied every year to keep those shafts from getting sticky. No one seems to remember to oil the thing, and on a machine that sits unused for many months, they tend to get sticky / rusty.

If sticky / stuck, soak that shaft with JB 80 or some other good solvent / lubricant and carefully work that shaft back and forth using a small visegrip gently clamped to the rotor shaft, until it works freely.

Have had this happen several times on 292 chevy powered combines.

If no advance problems, yes, the dist can be installed one or more notches out of time, not allowing uou to rotate the dist housing enough to correctly set the timing.
You can remove the distributor and reclock the rotor to allow enough dist housing movement to correctly set the timing. The dist shaft does not drive the oil pump like it does on so many 6 cyl engines, so no worry about getting the pump drive out of place when removing the dist.

Another thing to watch, is that a 30-40 year old vibration damper may have slipped and the timing marks are no longer accurate. The best way to check for a slipped damper is with a TDC finder that screws into #1 plug hole. They are quite easy to build from a bolt, nut and old spark plug shell. Google "TDC finder" to find a place to buy one or for instructions on how to build this simple tool.

For heavens sake doesn"t anyone use a vacuum gauge or timing light anymore? This should be a simple thing to diagnose and fix. Simply adjust timing to best vacuum and check setting with timing light at idle. Rev engine a few hundred rpms and check timing and vacuum again. The vacuum gauge will tell you what timing the engine wants.

Thanx guys For all replies ,,.I can tell the mechanical advance is not working Properly , i put Some WD 40 in there for Now and will add some oilin the AM , am not ready to move timing JUST YET, I lent my good timing lite out 10 years ago , and it never came back !!. While tinkering this evening,, I NOTICED THE FUEL PUMP NOT ALWAYS CLICKING and pumping WITH THE PROGRAM !!!.. finally quit altogether ,, ( O'reilys wants 59bucks for a new pump I willcheck with Local Massey dealer for rebuild kits foreither of the 2 styles of Pumps I have on hand).. this is another Devils Advocate that may have been causing Mis -diagnosing over the last few days , Perhaps to much E-85 Could have gooed up the inner rubber Parts???? , BUT , every time I checked the Gas the pump was always putting it thru .. With All your Support . i think we are about to get this OL gal runnng like it is supposed to ,, Sure is nice To hear from all of you , It makes the lonely walk thru the Valley not so anxiety ridden .. I am Gonna make this 300 earn its KEEP YET !

Yes, I forgot. I agree with Bob and say the plastic gear in the distrutor had to be replaced once. It broke off right at the pin hole. I robbed one from my 300 combine slant six.

if you are running straight E-85that might explain some of your performance issues,i"m not against using it in fact i wish it would become more widely available probably all i would use to get off crude oil fuels, but have noticed that some carbureted engines experience minor problems such as having to run the choke a little tighter and longer to warm it up,idle mixture will be a bit lean also high speed mixture will be a little lean ,on some engines can be adjusted if the carb has a high speed screw adj. doesn"t cold start to well during cold weather, we blended about 60% gas to 40% E-85 that helped cure some of our problems with having to do any adjusting

UPDATE .. Many thanx to All RESPONSES , ... Today I got he timing set to where it will start upjust fine ,(suspected that All along but resisted moving it until all SUSPECTS were APPREHENDED ) Still need to get the idle set , ( Need a Website ), but at least the governor is not running away . Main SUSPECTS WERE , Points ,condensor , Coil,(doubtful that coil was bad after all after fuel pump shennanigans ,, , Carburater , fuel pump . distributer Advance stuck,,better performance enhanced by plug wires,and new Autolite plugs , Fuel filter and newfuel line ,,,. . , took old fuel pump apart and found a rubber seal that was close to Caulk vicosity ????,, i suppose too much e-85 ????,, bought new pump should be tolerate of E-85 , And for under 50 degree temps I usually cut back to 50/50 ... tomorrow We go to the fields again .. you guys make Learning Worthwhile ! ..

Your never going to get good performance with E85. Way to much alcohol unless you have your carb jetted for it. For an engine that is worked like a combine engine is you should be running no more than E10!