I have to push the distributer all the way to the fire wall side to get the white line on the crank shaft pulley to line up with the pointer. Is this right?

 

does your timing gun have an adavnce on it? usually the timing mark will look way off and with a non advance timing light you usually have to turn the distributor way off till it lines up.

with a timing adavnce light, hook up the light set it to 0 and increse the timing on the gun till you get the white line to line up that is your current timing.

Then set the timing to whatever you please on the gun (i like 18 degrees) and turn the dizzy till the white line lines up again

 

Thanx man, I have the wrong light.

 

If you have one without advance just line it up with the red mark. Its in the center of three that are plus or minus.

 

I am having a similar problem. I thought I would check the timing on my girlfriends civic (d16y8).
-The distributer was turned all the way towards the firewall (maximum advance). This scared me I checked it with the timing light. According the nonadjustable timing light, it is not even advanced to the minimum advance line. (the one just to right of the red baseline) I cannot advance my timing enough to even get it the the "stock" position

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jdurston &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">... I cannot advance my timing enough to even get it the the "stock" position</TD></TR></TABLE>Check to see if the camshaft timing is OK.

 

agreed cam shaft timing