Before you replace the vacuum canister on the distributor, did you check to see if the mechanism moves when you suck on the hose from the carb? That hose is connected to ported vacuum which starts to suck vacuum once the throttle blades open. Some carbs might have a little vacuum coming from that port at idle, but generally not or not enough to pull the advance. The "remove the vacuum line from the distributor" instructions is an olden days pre-smog era hand-me-down procedure from when the distributor used to be hooked up to full manifold vacuum.

 

Here's a long shot. If the vacuum advance is good, check the centrifugal advance weights, there springs, and the pivots. If the weights are egged out or the pivots have a slot wore into them they may not be letting you get all your timing in. Three grand is right were you want it all in by. I just found a broken spring in my MSD and that is only about six years old. Who knows how old that points distributor is. I would get one out of the junk yard. HEIs are a great distributor in stock form. They even make conversions to put them in Fords.

 

Hey what can I say? I'm a bit of a dinosaur! Mine is connected to the metering block on my Holley, but I still can't stop myself from plugging it when I pull it off the distributor! Some old habits die hard!

 

Tell me about it, so do I. Once you're in that "just in case" rut, it's hard to get out of it!

 

ok so. tha vac canister is alright but the timeing was really hard spring for the vac. my cam lobes were kinda rounded off but the distributer looks alrigth but whats odd is. when i unhooked the lines it stayed at 9 degrees. its like the mechanical advance didnt work right. and my vac did work some. at 9degrees advanced with the line hooked up it ran only to maybe 20 degrees.. so me and guy at shucks and my dad all looked at the thing for a while and its kinda odd i guess... so today instead of messing with it anymore i got a MSD street fire dizzy and (wrong) set of plug wires gonna return them for the right kind. but now i can tune my canister and the mec advance is all smooth. i just think my distributer is worn out and my 305 doesnt like it. so tomorow ima get the right plug wires and set my timing to 8 then tune the vac and mechanical advance in and hopefully get a way hotter spark and fix this rich lean crap.

 

i put that break in lube all over the gear and coudlnt even start it so im a little bumed might pull it back out put more lube on it and reinstall in like a min. to make sure the stuff i put on it tonight hasn't ran off.

 

Why are you going to do that? The break in lube has nothing to do with it not starting. Sounds like your timing is off. Did you double check that your #1 cylinder was at TDC compression stroke when you dropped the distributor in? And had the rotor pointing to the #1 wire? And that your plug wires aren't crossed? And you have a good 12 volts going to the distributor?

 

What he said.

 

no.. lol it started fine and its running better too. i ment that i couldnt start it last night because the set of plug wires i got i didn't like so i got new ones. i knew the break in lube for the new dizzy would run off and down into the pan. so i pulled it back out put more on and reinstalled it back in and put new wires on and once i found the timing mark it started right up no problem. set it to 9 degrees. also hooked the vac line into the main manifold vac and stayed off the metering block vacuum and it was alot better it jumped into the 20 degree zone. now i got to tune my vac canister in.

now it talks about break in time and to check the gear and such. how much should i run it before i check it again. i ran it up to temp at idle for like 15 mins and it ran better. still has a bog but the timing is there now. haven't even taken it on the street yet to try it because im worried about correct break in of this gear.

 

I'm puzzled by a couple things. How do you "tune my canister"??????????? It's just a plastic canister with hoses on it. What's to tune?
And the gear break in is a new one on me? Never knew a distributor gear had to break in, or at least be checked during break in. If you pull it out to check, do they say what you're supposed to see? I wouldn't know what I was expecting to see, except to see if it's just fine, or all torn up? Hope they told you what to look for when you're inspecting it after break in. They should have also told you how many minutes or hours this break in took.