Roy's Garage: '90 2.4-4G64 5-spd D-50

[royster]

Apollogies for the panic attack: everything turned out fine.

It started quicker when I advanced (or retarded) the distributor, so I'm not sure if I'm one tooth off on the distributor, but I think the timing could be better.
EDIT: Thanks to Komeuppance:

...are you able to set your distributor near the middle of it's adjustment range after you retimed the belts?? If it needs to use all the adjustment up one way, you are one tooth off with the belt. You NEED to ground the timing adjustment wire near the firewall to set the timing correctly, this tells the ECU not to change the timing, allowing you to set the base timing. Having the cam timing off, or the ignition timing off will make it slow.

I have a seriously ticky lifter, and I have to assume I installed a hydrolic lifter upside-down. Comments welcome. As there is no adjustment on this engine for rockerarms, it's all IN the lifter, and these are new. My intention is to remove the valve cover and inspect them, but tomorrow: this is enough for one day.

NOW THE GOOD NEWS
Once I was confident the oil was getting through, I started the truck up and let it get to operating temperature. The warmer it got, the better it ran...getting its "sea-legs" after sitting for so long, and the battery disconnected, I assume the electronics have to re-callibrate themselves. I was hoping the lifter would pump up, but it didn't.

Even in its rough-tuned state, it still starts with a bump of the key. There was ONE tear~drop leak from the water pump...where I forgot to tighten the alternator bracket bolt that goes through the water pump. Everything else is wonderful. The engine has a good smell to it. There was very little smoke when it started up, and none as it ran. The worst smoke was actually paint burning off the heat sheild: that "high heat" paint obviously isn't meant for that high of a heat. I'll let it burn off and chalk it up to experience.

I drained the water/radiator flush and was happy to see very little crap come out. I refilled the water system with coolant and let it get back up to running temperature so it could mix real well: tonight it's supposed to get down to 19 degrees and I don't want to take any chances.

There was an internal backfire when I gunned the motor, which leads me to think the timing is off at the distributor by a tooth. I could really use some expert advice on that. As the distributor is all the way to one side of its possible travel, I tend to think the tooth thing, but I don't know for sure. [SEE ABOVE EDIT NOTE]

So tomorrow I'll take the valve cover off and see what's what in there. Is it possible to remove the rocker arm assembly without removing the cam, or will the cam come up and whomp me on my stubborn head once the bearing are loosened?

Once the engine has a good bill of health, I'll procede to the disc brake problem. Soon enough I'll be driving my Little Tin Can, but for today, it was wonderfult to hear him run again.

He gets to live in the garage for the Winter.

Also, I went to have photos developed but the one-hour machine was broken, so it will be Tuesday before I can post pictures, but I got some good ones.