Distributor and cylinder numbers

[SgtKish]

I did all the basics again playing around for a few hours. All I'm getting is some puffs out the tail pipe every 5 seconds. It doesn't  sounds like a normal back fire. More like a backfire with a silencer on the tail pipe. Ran a line from the manifold to the top of the fuel pump. And sealed the end of the large pipe that goes to the hydrovac until I get one installed.  For some reason now my fuel pump isn't pushing fuel to the carburetor. I might need to just move the hose down in the fuel container I have on the side that's feeding the pump. I just gave up on it for the night. Yesterday when I had that oil pump tang flipped 180for the distributor to fit 180 as well, she sounded like she wanted to start a few times. When I flipped it back completely different stuff going on.

[SgtKish]

Another thing, I'm not sure if my compression tester is off a few pounds or not but I'm getting 110 100 95 90 105 115. My m37 runs on 89 to 95 on all cylinders. The book says it needs to be 120 and within 10 on each cylinder.  Do you think these compression readings are fine for this engine?

[spillmk1]

Should fire with those #'s.
Might get even better after it runs a bit.

You can rig a small "tank" to gravity feed carb.
See attached photo that shows what I did on my stand to run the engine.
That would get the fuel issue out of the way....unless a carb issue.
Can always pour a bit of fuel down carb and see if she fires.
Like I said before....these motors are thirsty.

Keep at it...you'll figure it out!!

Keith

[SgtKish]

Is there a way I can get a pic from someone on a view down the distributor shaft. So I can see what the oil pump extension shaft looks like from the top were the distributor tang fits into. While at top dead center of course. Now unless the shielded plugs are grounding out on the top of the head somehow preventing it from starting, then the oil pump shaft is backwards.  That's all I can think of. In theory it should be starting. I'm getting spark, fuel, air, compression,  vacuum,  and it's in time for what I can see. Plus I'm using starting fluid now and that bearly gives me a putter and that's when I flip the wires 180 on the distributor. Lining the 1 cylinder plug up while at tdc on compression stroke only gives me a back fire.

[SgtKish]

Ok I know I'm spit balling at this point. I put the plugs back in the original place for tdc on 1 cylinder in the cap with the router pointing at number one plug about to open. Now even though I checked each plug and I have spark using the original shielded wires. I decided to grab two random regular plug wires and put those in the 4 and 6 cylinder plugs. Then for the first time....I had the engine start for 3 sec, then 5 seconds. I wanted to start. So I'm going to take a stab at it and just buy new plugs and see if that works better. I have a feeling these original plugs are grounding out. Is there known issues with these shielded plug wires I should know about?