My 48 LC v12 has been hard to start. The 6 volt starter,
with a new battery labors to turn the starter. I have cleaned and tightened ALL of the electrical connections in the starter
circuit. I have taken the starter off the car and had it checked, and it is OK. The timing plate on the rt side of the distributor body was adjusted almost all the way to the top of it's adjustment I was advised to slide the plate down-ward. I did this and it did make a difference in the starting. How can I adjust this correctly So I know it is where it should be? Glenn Lorei (b6vt)

Glenn, you will probably have to send the distributor to someone like Jake Fleming to set the initial timing. There are no "marks" for reference on the engine. The correct position of the plate on the side of the distributor is pretty much dependent on the gap setting and configuration of the points. There is a "manual" way of setting the initial advance but it's a "ballpark" setting at best. You might have better luck getting the initial timing set correct and then try adjusting the vacuum brake to get a quicker advance to take advantage of the higher octane modern fuel.

I set my points on a distributor machine and when I bolted it on it chached the dwell 12 degreesm dont know why this happened but I had 3 more dist, and they all did the same thing, so after using the machine I used a dwell meter and set the point while on the car, belive me its not an easy job and took me 3 day to do it but it starts right up first time every time, I found my Tach/Dwell meter for 15 bucks at the local outdoor swap meet, got a Snap On and one of the wires were broke and they fixed it for free.