Twas what i thought...thanks

 

I really suggest getting a Haynes Manual for your car it will make your like 200% easier. It has all the information that you have asked and very detailed instructions.

 

i tip i use to remove the crank pulley,

if manual trans i have someone get in car and put in rev, and hold the brakes to the floor, then i put a breaker bar on the bolt and break it loose, if its to hard to break loose, i use a jack and jack up the breaker bar and the wieght of the vehicle will break it loose.

or you can always use a electric impact.

 

Thanks for all the reply's guys its really appreciated. I've got another one for you here. I've worked on 4cylinder motors quite a bit,usually dohc. This is the first single I've tried to set in time and its got me a little stumped. I think i'm probably not seeing the whole picture... I'll get the crank aligned at tdc...then when i go to set the cam gear the marks on the cover seem to be staggered, not straight across from eachother, while the marks on the cam gear are...this is what I'm seeing:


And that's with the spoke on the cam gear going straight up...so when i go to set it, it's always off about a tooth on the one side...Another pic:


We got it set at what we thought was right and the car would start up and run with the timing advanced out a good ways (with all the distributor bolts out turning it back towards the firewall) but if you let it drop below ~1500rpm it would just die...Any insight on this?

 

The red TDC1 marks in your illustration actually should be aligned with the top line of the head not the plastic arrow in your photo. I find it easier to set the cam timing by looking at the rear side of the cam pulley, where there are also TDC1 marks on the cam pulley.

When cam pulley is perfectly at TDC1, the pointer should align with the white TDC1 mark on the crank pulley.