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It may depend on how the knock sensor has failed but, they CAN detrimentally affect performance by causing the car to over-retard timing. many people have found cracks in the knock sensor and had good luck with $15 or w'ever replacements. pay attention to which direction the cable 'points', remove old sensor, clean underneath , bolt new one on, don't overtorque it, plug it in.

If you jack front end up, place stands or blocks under the lower control arms so you can turn full lock to lock by hand to see if you can pick something binding

I would start with this approach. Spray a little starting fluid or carb cleaner in the top of the carb, or pour a little gas in there and see if it will start and run for a few seconds. If so then its a fuel problem. If it doesn't, check the ignition system next, which it sounds like you done partially with the timing light. However, if you have a weak spark issue it may trigger the timing light but not be strong enough for the vehicle to run.

The cam belt wheel has 36 teeth , convenient when full circle is 360° and you can divide by 10 If I think about it I have never counted the crank wheel but guessing theory suggests 18? to get the 1:2 or 2:1 thing So if your covers are grubby and not melted, a steel rule applied to the line of the head to cam carrier housing should line right through centre of those two larger holes when on TDC#1 and looking at small single holes each side should be 180° difference between dizzy side and turbo side. Dizzy should look like mine and #1 cap post and lead the closest to firewall, almost like 12 o'clock position looking from radiator

while cranking, feed-in some starting fluid, unlit propane or maybe brake cleaner into the intake, if it fires, you have a fueling problem. If not, likely electrical.

That's great. Thanks so much for looking at this, I really appreciate it. Takes the mystery out of it! Step-a-Toe, thanks a lot for those pics and that information, too. It helps. I have to say that I'm pretty embarrassed at the condition of my timing covers compared to those :O Those are spotless, and mine, well..Let's just say the last shop who did the job probably just threw the new belts over the old sludge. The belts have no name or anything on them, so they were probably the cheapest ones they could get. Maybe getting 37k miles out of them was doing alright.

I should have written instructions at the time I took these pics some years ago. They were not for setting belts now I recall. It is for setting the Series One dizzy. So, as labels state, these are at #1 TDC not 20° as stated an hour ago You can see the cut outs where the gold marker outline skips on the plastic belt backings. These are dead line ball with where can carrier body sits on head, so this must be the line guys use when they run naked belts. Where I put red stickers to indicate the ~3mm hole - these holes are observed opposite each other in these pics and when installing timing belts and cheating by not doing the one full flywheel revolution between belts. So I think when the three soldiers lll are lined up on the middle brother, dizzy side is tiny hole dead at six o'clock, turbo side dead at 12 Do one full rotate to check tiny holes opposite each other again, switching the 12 and 6 clock positions. When in these pictures positions, I have one more pic for how Series One dizzy should look and there is about a 25 though "gap" before the two bits line up

I just dug through my spare parts. Found a cam carrier with a distributor. 1 turn of the cam pulley makes one turn on the distributor. 1:1 gears. All you have to do is line up the timing marks.

If the fine copper fins are coming off the tubes, that radiator is shot. The fins not only remove the heat, they support the flat sides of the tubes. Without the fins, they flex under pressure, and eventually stress fracture. Loosing coolant is the quickest way to require a head gasket job or worse.

FYI for anybody that cares, basically swapped the automatic transmission and all the trimmings for a spare 4SPD dual range in case I need it sometime in the future. I also broke down and built a work bench around the engine sitting on the floor so it wasn't completely wasted space, so it looks like I'm keeping that a while too.

Hoard the bits like the rest of us. This way you ensure you won't need them. Disposal will jjinx you