new head gasket installed wont start?

I just finished installing a new head gasket with all other required gaskets and now the metro will not turn over. quite disapointing. I am thinking it is something to do with the timing/belt. the vehicle smells like it is getting fuel into the cylinders but no combustion. I lined the crankshaft notch and the camshaft notch to both be pointing nearly stright up. this put the distributor back into top center position for the pistons. For the crankshaft i am using the little potrusion that the pully fits onto as the mark, is this correct? are there any other ideas out there?

i have triple checked all the hose and wiring connections, all seem to be put back correctly. i did not remove the distributor during the head removal so that should still be good.

http://geometroforum.com/topic/2232748

for good pictures of the timing marks

Also, check the bundle of ground wires that connect just below the throttle body, lots of folks forget to re-attach those and they're the grounds for pretty much everything.

I had trouble getting my 95 to get going after replacing the head gasket. In my case, the trouble was the head itself. It had become too fouled from running with one cylinder always wet with oil from ring blow-by... probably not your problem. Like you suspect and Woodie says, check the timing. The 96 timing gear has two marks on opposite ends. You may try the other one. The other thing it could be is that you are on TDC on the exhaust stroke? I'm not sure if I explained that right, but on one timing belt change my first attempt failed, but when I advanced the engine to the next TDC on cyl 1, it worked.

Good luck,

Jai

Thanks for the help guys. turns out my timing was 180 degrees off. my camshaft wheel has two marks on it, i do not know if that is standard are not but it sure makes things confusing. I adjusted it 180 degrees and wam bam started right up with no problems surfacing yet.

Thanks for the help guys. turns out my timing was 180 degrees off. my camshaft wheel has two marks on it, i do not know if that is standard are not but it sure makes things confusing. I adjusted it 180 degrees and wam bam started right up with no problems surfacing yet.
Whenever changing the belt on the 93 and newer 1.0 engine make sure the dowel on the camshaft is pointing down and the mark on the opposite side should be close. It all depends on how the cam gear was installed on the cam. Either way the dowel needs to be at the bottom.