Okay, we now have gas where it needs to go, new points, rotor, distributor cap, condenser and coil, and still nothing but back firing in the exhaust. I’m going to have to assume that the the distributor is just not timed correctly. I put the question to the vintage Mustang forum, and the conclusion there was the same. The distributor is likely 180 degrees out.

The distributor is conveniently place right at the front of the engine on the 289, so that’s nice. One single bolt holds it down, so removal appears easy. HOWEVER. One thing to really pay attention to here, and I’ll get to why in a minute, is the oil pump intermediate shaft. This goes from the oil pump, and up into the distributor. What makes it fun is that when you lift out the distributor, the shaft sometimes sticks and follows the distributor up. This is no problem, as you can just put it back in its place. The problem occurs when it only follows up a little, and then comes loose, as it has two possible ways to go. One is right back down to the oil pump where it came from, and the other is all the way down into the oil pan. You can guess where mine went.

Several people have mentioned that you could actually leave the shaft in the oil pan, and just buy a new one, as they’re $8 or so, and it’ll just lay there in the bottom of the pan until you decide to take it out, but I can’t say I feel comfortable with a stick of steel shaking around in there, and it wouldn’t hurt to pull the oil pan anyway.

So, next up, pulling the oil pan.