Hey all,

Long story short, timing belt lost teeth, while I was replacing the belt I also installed a K-Cam that I purchased a while ago from a fellow member.

With all the marks lining up and all done up, the car won't start, am I missing something? When the belt rotated around again, the marks on the belt line up as well. There seems to be a strong spark, and when I keep cranking the bowl at the bottom of the intake is filling up with fuel, but the plugs seem dry?

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Any help would be greatly appreciated 👍

Okay, so you have spark.

You (apparently) have fuel.

Do you have compression?

Also - how old is your crank pulley? (When they get old, the thin rubber insulator between the inner and out sections lets the outer section of the pulley slip 'n' slide, so the timing mark isn't where it's supposed to be).

Hey Major,

Definitely have spark, fuel I'm not convinced, I could be testing incorrectly. But I pulled the injectors out and sat them on top of the intake manifold, while cranking the engine nothing came out of any of the injectors, I don't think this is normal behavior but I'm not sure entirely.

Pully hasn't been replaced for a good while I think, but I eyed up tdc with a screwdriver in cyl1 and it's awfully close.

I'll check compression tomorrow and report back

Yeah the belt is lined up correctly per the marks and distributor rotor position 👌 if any shadow of a doubt you can pull a spark plug and stick a length of coat-hanger or long screwdriver in and turn the motor approaching TDC and just feel that the piston tops out at the marked TDC position.

Injectors should spray while cranking. Do you hear the fuel pumps while cranking? Turn car to reds and disconnect then reconnect the coil negative lead (labelled "-" or "1"). When you do that, it should make the KJet system relay (1978 is the first year that used this relay) think that the coil has fired, which is how it knows the engine is running, which in turn should lead to the whirr of fuel pumps for a couple seconds.

I would go back to basics, and confirm TDC is where you think it is by using a screwdriver down #1 spark plug hole.
The distributor is in the right spot for TDC #1.

Then double check the cam lobes on #1. They should both be pointing up and equally spaced away from the centre.

The B21 and 23’s used a solid metal (no rubber) crank pulley

no rubber= no slippage

As an easy test disconnect the two 2 pin Bosch connectors from the cold start injector and idle air speed controller (that probably has another name, though that is its function). They are at the top of the engine on the intake side about Cyl. 2 or 3. Crank it and see how you go.

If not luck above, once compression confirmed the cam timing should be fairly easy to check, though it seems right from the pics. Look in the oil filler cap for the two no.1 lobes pointing up while at TDC and dist pointing to no.1 lead.

Pull the fuel pump fuses (removing the fuel system from working) and try to run it on Aerostart. A one or two second blast into the intake manifold then cranking should get it to fire. A short squirt each second or so should keep it running rough enough to prove it works.

Check the cold start injector, sounds like it may be leaking as the main injectors are not flowing though there is fuel in the intake manifold. Also check the two connectors to the idle air controller and cold start injector, they are easy to mix up though when backwards I have seen immediate problems. It may be that the cold start injector is powered on from the connector intended for the air controller. That could cause the problems.

a month later
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