No spark - Code 2113 Hall Signal - Crank Pulley slipped

[Ben Swann]

I had been diagnosing a problem I thought was associated with a bad hall distributor –
Code 2113 that had left me stranded one day.  After checking quite a few things and
determining the TDC pin was still on the flywheel, I rechecked flywheel/crank with
respect to cam pulley.  Although the Mark in front of the crank pulley was still lined
up with the Cam Sprocket, the 0- on the flywheel was nowhere to be seen.  Upon locating
the 0- and resetting the timing belt, the car started.  A quick test run and the crank
sprocket slipped again – I did not realize what was happening until the second time, but
indeed the crank sprocket was slipping.  Must have sheared the key.

I’ve never had this happen before and this one was tightened to about 300 ft-lbs using
loctite blue.   This is just a data point for those who may encounter a dead engine
no-spark condition and ruled out everything else.  This problem happened on megasquirted
engine using MAC-14 as ignition, but could have been the same for any of the engines
using the single window hall distributor (7A, 3B, MC-1,2, WX, etc.) and may have
resulted in bent valves on some other engines using high lift cam.

Ben