Okay, I'm adjusting the valves, and I've done it before on my '75. Here's the problem, I have the TDC mark lined up with the notch in the impeller, the notch in the flywheel is visible through the opening in the top of the tranny, but my rotor is 90 degrees clockwise from the mark on the dizzy (pointing more towards the battery, or towards the throttle body when the mark comes around again). The #1 piston is at TDC using the old "dowel in the sparkplug hole" trick, so why would the dizzy be that far off?

Wires off by one on the cap?

Either you've started the car with the dizzy out (in which your distributor drive shaft is out of alignment -- there's a classic thread in how to re-align this), or you're not really at TDC. check, re-check, and double check TDC. sometimes flywheels have been modified, remarked, renotched, etc. by PO's.

it's essentially impossible for your dizzy drive shaft to be out of alignment unless you've started the car w/out the dizzy -- so i'd recheck your TDC. good luck!

nate

This is the '74 that I just picked up from Chicago that was getting 40+ mpg. All I've done so far is change the plugs, cap, rotor, filters and started on a valve adjustment. I guess if the PO did incorrectly install the dizzy (90 deg. off), but got it to run anyway, that could be the secret to the high mpg [not]. Guess I'd better read up on dizzy removal and installation.

skline, how are you determining the dizzy is 90d off? If you're looking at the rotor and saying "that's not where No1 is on my other 914...", look and see if the No1 plug wire is attached to the post you think it should be. If the No1 plug is attached to the post where the rotor is pointing at TDC on No1, then it's not 90d "off", it's just rotated 90d from the "normal" orientation, which means the distributor drive gear is 90d off from the "normal" orientation, but as long as the plug wires are arranged to match, no problem.

It's 90 deg. CW from the "mark" on the dizzy housing that indicates where #1 is supposed to be. It appears to be exactly 90 deg. out, and it did run, so maybe I shouldn't "F" with it and just watch the rockers for the valve adjustment. Let's put it this way, if the front of the engine is 12:00, the rotor is pointing at approx. 2:00 on this engine when the TDC marks are aligned. My 2.0L that will be going in my '73 is pointing approx. 11:00 with the TDC marks aligned. I'm guessing that as long as the everything's firing in the correct order it doesn't really matter.

What kind of rotor does it have? If it has a rev-limiting rotor, at a casual glance the rev-limiting rotor looks like it is off in the CW direction by about 90 degrees as you describe. But if you look more closely and ignore the orientation of the spring mechanism, you will notice that the electrode is pointing in a different direction.

Demick

Nope, standard rotor.
Is it possible to install the dizzy wrong with the keyed bottom?

The position is of no importance as long as the rotor points towards the correct lead. Only interference is in timing the engine when the vac can get hung up prematurely on the case or flaps bar.