I Got Issues...... timing issues

[Hericletus]

OK took yall's advice and got a piston stop. Put it in and marked 0° TDC then turned it the other way and marked 0° TDC. Measured the distance between the marks and then went halfway between them. That should be exact TDC below is what I came out with (Second pen mark). Looks like the damper is off almost an Inch! I would have never thought it possible that it could spin. So that means when I put my distributor in it was at least a tooth off and when I was timing it I was actually retarding the timing causing the backfire and stall at 12 °! Got a new damper to install this weekend. As well as an Edelbrock carb rebuild kit, power steering pump and steering gear. A really big thanks everyone I will post and let you know if this took care of the timing issue. Got to LOVE the GBODYFORUM!!!!!

 

[565bbchevy]

Usually when a stock balancer goes bad the outer shell only moves a little in small increments over time so it most likely would not move when trying to spin it using any other method, it takes the rotation of a running engine typically to do that.
When you take the old balancer off you can verify it moved by comparing TDC and the crankshaft keyway clocking position with the new balancer.