I just rebuild this 87 head and replaced the valves and seals. I replaced the entire cooling system, ignition system, switched from mechanical fuel pump to electric inline, rebuilt the carburetor, replaced the fuel filter, and set the timing 6 times. I cannot for the life of me get the timing dead on. I am about 1 notch off from the looks of the timing marks. There seems to be plenty of fuel getting in the cylinder, plus I adjusted the float and am letting more fuel in then before. But as I try to start my truck it almost wants to turn over but I have the distributor adjustment as far forward as I can, forward seems to get it closer to starting. Ether isn't helping much either. But today I noticed some oil forming on the top of the carb, on the choke flap and around the base of the carb. Does anyone know why I can't start and what that oil can be from?  

Sounds like you have the spark plug wires out of order. Put the number one cylinder at top dead center, the distributor rotor should be pointing towards that cylinder, and the corresponding wire.  

there is a trick about setting base timing when putting in distributor ...  bring the engine around till you get compression on the number one cylinder...  bring the balancer mark up to where you expect the running timing to be set at..   drop the dizzy in... with the rotor pointing toward the #1 spark plug wire as shown in most shop manual..

bump the engine around again to make sure the dizzy drops onto the oil pump drive.. if it did not fall all the way in the first time...

again bring it up to the base timing mark on the balancer...    rotate the dizzy housing till the reluctor and pickup coil parts line up exactally...  you can lock the dizzy down at this time...    and the number one spark plug wire goes where the rotor is pointing...

it sure is nice to be able to crank a motor for the first time without needing to move the dizzy around to get it to run...

(the trick is... the tips of the reluctor and the pickup coil cause the ignition module to fire as they pass the center to center alignment...)   so if you have the balancer timing marks lined up to the base timing mark,, you can rotate the dizzy housing till the parts line up exactly .. lock it there and it will be so close you might not need to retime it..    this is really great for those engines with the dizzy buried down deep behind the intake and all the cover...

i wish the staff would do an article on this... maybe a video for the website... it is so easy once you see it done...  

hi sounds flooded if you cant crank it ,hard to compress liquid?oil on top of new carb,pvc vacume prob.hope this helps give new direction 4u.  

Thank you to everyone for all their help. I'm trying to learn more and more everyday but ever since I left management for advance auto parts to move I haven't been involved with autos as much. But this truck has so much potential and I'm in the north again and I brought it from Ga so this 87' doesn't have a drop of rust.  

To me it sounds like a timing problem as well. But you didnt say what electic pump and type of carb. To see if its your carb Unhook the wire from the fuel pump so it will not pump. crank the motor over and pump the crap out of the gas pedal until you have no more fuel in the carb. pull all the spark plugs and clean them so they look like new. Let everthing sit for a day to evaperate all the gas out of the motor. Then (with fuel pump still unhooked) pour a bit of gas down the carb and try to start it up. If it starts it will only run for a breif couple seconds. Then hook up the pump let the carb bowls fill up then try to start it. If it will not start this time with the pump pumping you may need a regulator or attention to some other part of the fuel system like carb. If it didnt start after all that then it will be in the ignition. Take a couple of minutes and check each plug wire on a meter to ensure they are not broke or whatever. Make sure they are also correct with the firing order. For what its worth I just bought a work beater pontiac with a 305 carb. It had sat for awhile and would not start up. I brung it home and did the common replace of plug wires, cap, rotor, fillters, ect. I didnt change plugs because they looked like new. Two days of not getting it started I finally threw in a new set and it started right up instantly. And yes I did check spark at the old plugs and it had spark but just not enough. Just food for tought.  

You didn't say what kind of truck or engine. By '87 many manufactures went to computer controlled timing, meaning that if you didn't set timing in a way the computer understands and to where it thinks the timing should be then the computer is trying to adjust the timing to where it should be off a bad initial reference. Check the firing order as well.  

The Silver Buick beat me to that one. I got thinking of that after I posted my resonse. If thats the case then it should be set at 0 degrees.  

The Silver Buick beat me to that one. I got thinking of that after I posted my resonse. If thats the case then it should be set at 0 degrees..  

well I got the truck running and the timing set. But now it lacks power and doesn't sound just right. I did a compression check and my 3rd and 4th cylinder have no compression at all. I tried dropping some oil in and it didn't make a difference. I tried adjusting the valves out a little to make sure they were being allowed to close all the way and that didn't help. I seated the valves with valve grinding compound when I rebuilt the head and put new valves in so I hope that's not it. Anybody got any ideas as to why I have to compression. Oh yea when I had the head off there was no evidence of a cracked ring scratching the walls so I'm not thinking rings.