Tried a little search in this forum no luck.
318 stock rebuild...I am putting in the oil pump drive and my book says to align the slot in the shaft with the left front manifold bolt. I get it close and rotate but, Maybe im Nuking this out...I lined up a string in the upper left intake bolt hole and strung it taught back across the dist hole and line up the slot and it consistantly is off by a few degrees...lift the drive out and rotate the pump with a screwdriver slightly in the opposite direction reinstall the gear drive and it is still slightly off. Its as if the gear drive on the cam wont allow it to locate in the proper position...Like I said I may be thinking too much into it....Is it okay as long as the slot is in the general direction of the front left intake man bolt. or what...Thanks

As you guessed your over thinking it.. Get it close & you'll be fine.. It could be 90 degrees off & be fine, but your firing order wouldn't match what the manual shows so the next guy might get confused...

put your timing marks on 10 BTDC #1 compression then lift/turn the shaft so it's as close to that bolt as it'll get (pick which ever side of it that will get you the closest just like you did). this will allow you to route the wires slightly neater & less congested coming out of the dist cap & will maintain the OE routing location though as said you can start the #1 wire at any point but keeping things standardized will help you in the long run. EDIT on the dist itself the rotor blade is not exactly parallel w the notch on the end of the dist shaft. I'd align it so it places the ROTOR forward and slightly toward the PASS side to maintain the aforementioned factory plug wire alignment.

thanks...late nite...

if we are talking about the MP dist, the rotor position will be in fact around 90º off with the oil pump shaft on what books say

I line it up down the center of crank shaft or toward the bolt

either one thats the closest..

did you replace the shaft bushing in the block?

You are installing it right, it should be the right front. That is where they usually come out. It really makes no difference where they come out as long as you put the number one wire in the therminal where the rotor points and follow the firing order around the cap. I have seen very few if any OEM installed distributors on a small block where the number one plug wire was not just to the right front of center on the distributor cap. They were put in that way for uniformity sake only.

aye,aye, thanks all. Getting closer to laying it between the rails.
Joe