long time rotary mec first time points distributor user well heres how it goes started a rebuild on a 79 engine was origainally going to swap in half bridge port irons and port his rotor housing only when i open his engine its had scored housing and exessive chrome flaking but strangely enough all the insides were in great shape and still within specs rotors ,eshaft ,side seals, apex seals, corner seals ,and metal orings ,replace all springs and corner seal inserts i also replaced the rotor housings with a set i had from a s2 the engine ended up with a s1 rotating assembly and s2 housings my shaft play clearancing could have not been any more dead on but when i when to start the engine it would not even try its running on a points distributor and condenser was gone before i ever started working on the car the spark is weak and i fear the points may be gone at first i suspected the timing was off but the pulley and dizzy are dead on and installed in the correct position .the gap between the point is about .70mm and im switching to electric tomorrow

i also ran a compression test on the engine and it reads 87 psi in the front housing and 50psi in he rear housing witch doesnt surprise me considering that every part of this engine is used except for the springs and o rings my problem is i cant think of anything else to try after i change to elecronic ignition is their any other reason it wont start

 

yeah i agree it could easily be the points ignition. i'll skip the story, but the breaker plates wear out in the dizzy, and then the replacement points we were getting a couple years ago really sucked, they'd last like 1500miles...



however it still should start, i'd crank it over with a timing light and make sure its sparking and the timing is close. second it would be nice to make sure its getting fuel.

 

it must of been a bad dizzy changed every thing out to a elecric one with magnetic pick up when it had the points dizzy in i did use a timing light to make sure it was dead on but the engine gave me nothings but i did get it started yesterday engine sounded strong even with the compression readings i just hope the compression goes up after its broken in

 

it should, the housings and seals both need to wear into each other