95 LS, stock B18B motor. my sisters car.

what is the best/easiest way to determine top dead center, prior to pulling the dist.

whats the easist way to pull the dist, any tricks?

 

you can pull the distributor and replace it with the new one. it will only go in one way. the tooth that slides into the intake camshaft will only fit in one way. you can't make a mistake.

but if you really want the #1 cyl at TDC line up the white mark on the crank pully to the timing mark on the timing belt cover.

good luck.

 

The best way IMO is to put a little piece of electrical tape (to protect the piston) on the end of a long dowel or screwdriver, put it in the #1 cylinder. Put the car in 5th gear on a level surface, ebrake off. Pyll the car forward or push it backward from the radiator support. Watch the cam gears to see the the up arrow approaches the up position while watching the screwdriver to see when it stops going up and starts moving back down again. The point where it stops going up and before it starts going back down is TDC. If you dont want to remove the valve cover you can use the mark on the pulley or the distributor rotor instead of the mark on the gears, but many people's marks are old and faded.

 

or just keep it neutral and turn the crankshaft pulley, on driver side behind wheel.

 

thanks guys. there was no compression in the #1 cylender, and I had to pull the head.

there was a hold in one of the valves, the size of --- 1cmx1cm a nice sized chunk missing. beat me how it happened, only 68k+ miles on the engine. the head is going to be rebuilt.