wont start unless you turn the distributor every time and when you get it started as long as you keep starting it its fine. but if it sits for any length of time it wont start again unless you get out and turn distributor again. i also put a timing lite on it but that did not change anytuing
It sounds like you need a new distributor. It appears to be not advancing-retarding properly.
This car has the ignition module located on the distributor, the grey box in the front. These are prone for all kinds of weird failures. I’ll bet that when you are ‘tweaking’ the timing, your actually restoring some sort of connection to the ignition module.