Please pardon my ignorance, as I'm fairly new to wrenching. Anyhow here's my question...

I need to remove my distributor so that I can replace the ignition control module; which is attached to the distributor. While reading the instructions in my Chilton manual for removing the distributor, it says that I need to rotate the engine until piston #1 is at TDC. All of my searches online for finding TDC seem to refer to timing marks on the timing belt pulley. However, my '87 Ford Ranger (V6, 2.9L) does not have a timing belt; it has a timing chain. A few references that I've found online suggest that I can find the TDC mark if I remove the radiator and other stuff and get all of the way down to the timing chain. But I don't want to dig that far into the engine. All I want to do is remove the distributor.

Question #1: do I REALLY need to have piston #1 at TDC before I remove the distributor?

Question #2: If the answer to #1 is "yes"; then how can I verify that it is at TDC without removing all of the necessary parts to get to the timing chain? Is there an easier way of seeing the timing marks somewhere?

Thanks!!!

A simple way to do it is, find the #1 plug wire tower on the dist cap. make a mark on the side of the dist even with the tower, then remove the cap, turn the engine (by hand) till the rotor lines up with that mark. #1 piston will be at tdc compression, don't turn the engine after removing the dist.

When you are pulling the distributor it really does not matter if it is TDC
Just DO NOT rotate the engine while the distributor out
Mark the position of the rotor and put it back in with the rotor pointing in the same spot

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1988 Ranger STX, custom built flatbed, winch, 33x 10.5 BFG mudders
1974 Suburban (AKA "the sub") lockers front & rear, 383 cu in not even close to stock motor, snowplow 37 x 12.5 HUMMV tires, 4.56 gears
1952 M38 (CJ3) Jeep - my newest project - 289 ford, hardtop, got it with not one wire in it. Hope to have it driving this year

best would be to mark the base, too. even though the rotor is in the same position, the base has to be in the same place also. but probably close enough to re-time it at least.

Thanks all!!

Tomboy... my concern with your suggestion was that (as far as I understood things) the distributor fires a fraction of a second before the piston reaches top dead center. This is to allow for the travel time from the distributor to the spark plug and then into the cylinder. But nonetheless, I started my process with your recommendation. I marked the distributor cap (spark plug #1) with the distributor body.

I then removed the cap and rotated the engine until the rotor was a little bit before rotor spark #1. I then removed spark plug #1 and stuck a screw driver into the spark plug hole. (I made certain to use a screw driver that was large enough that it wouldn't risk accidentally falling into the cylinder.)

Then I continued to rotate the engine while I watched the screw driver slowly get pushed out of the hole by the upward moving piston. (Fortunately, it was pretty easy for me to see the screw driver from where I had to turn the engine from beneath the truck.) I continued turning the engine SLOWLY until the screw driver stopped coming out. As soon as I saw it begin to drop back down again, I stopped turning the engine, and then turned it back the other way just a TINY little bit. I figured that this was about as close to top dead center as I was about to get.

Everything else went pretty well. I had found online the recommendation to mark the alignment of the distributor body to the engine block that it is attached to, but I didn't make as much of an effort as I should have. The piece of tape that I had put on it had fallen off by the time I got the distributor out. I was lucky enough to put everything back together again by memory and it worked just fine. But if I do this again in the future, I will make certain to mark that VERY precisely.

for what it's worth, timing is advanced because fuel doesn't instantly/completely burn as soon as the spark hits the plug. loose power if combustion happens when piston is already heading down. always good to double check the timing to be sure it's on. you can run 12-14BTDC base timing pretty safely, but back off if you get any pings