After finally getting the distributor issue resolved, I decided to break out my new dwell meter and check the dwell before setting the timing. After using a points gap of .016, the dwell turned out to be 50°. But that wasn’t good enough for me, so I tried to get it down closer to the range of 47°-52°.
Big mistake. After setting a gap of .018 to get the dwell down, I couldn’t get the engine to start.
I was almost out of gas, so I decided to use some fresh marine gas that I recently picked up during the recent hurricane scare.
After adding gas and resetting the points again, I finally got her started again, BUT … I was getting a horrible engine knock from the passenger side of the engine. I thought it was going to throw a rod.
I went to bed, and it dawned on me the next day that I had added the marine gas, and maybe that was the issue for some reason. I didn’t think of the gas being an issue as I had used non-ethanol gas before with no problems.
I drained the tank and picked up some fresh, regular unleaded gas.