Can't advance timing! Hits t-stat housing?

[JChalfan]

lol, I can just see someone doing this, pushing the car an inch, looking under the hood, pushing it back an inch, rechecking it finding out he went past it, pushing the car an inch.....

I've done this a bunch of times. Of course in hindsight, it may have been comical to watch...

 

[bloopbloob]

ok well i finally got around to this just today! been too busy...
anyways, my rotor points to the #1 plug on the cap. i yanked the dizzy, rotated it so i won't have clearance issues, and put it back in. now i don't know what i'm doing wrong.!!! when i rotate it too much either way, it just dies! i can't make it ping. the only way it will run nice and still start is where it was before! when i rotate it (clockwise and counter cw, i get a surging idle, and then it dies after about a minute. i can change from like 5* to probably over 30*, with little difference except at those extremes, it sputters out. what am i doing wrong? maybe i need to make a video of what i'm doing? it doesn't make sense to me. i've never done this before...
just noticed the q? - i'm using the pointer not the hole