So history, bought it 5 years ago, drove it home..ran great...fire it up from time to time, while sitting, ran fine. 5 years later, have dropped 7 grand into making it a daily driver/Oregon backwoods wheeler. Have changed fuel lines, filter, new cap, rotor plugs and wires. Would turn over, but no spark. Replaced coil..nothing...did more troubling shooting..diagnosed as pick up coil, in stalled it, has spark, but still won't fire up. Find out, that probably while sitting at ex wife's house, someone messed with pick up coil, as well as moving distributor 20 degrees off. Corrected all set cylinder to one, distributor to one belt to one...everything in line...turn it over and when we checked timing, on two different guns. Where it should have been on one..was on the opposite side..pulley is I suspected and good. Other info...has a webber 380 on it, when turning over it is back firing out of the carb, which I take as being out of time. Any onsite or ideas would be great appreciated...

 

Not sure why someone would be messing with just the pickup coil, but that gives me a few ideas. "Backfiring" out of the carb sounds like a sure sign that the timing was monkeyed with, & could even be 180 degrees out if someone removed the distributor & put it back in wrong, causing the spark to happen at Top Dead Center of the EXHAUST stroke instead of the COMPRESSION stroke.Manually setting the engine to Top dead Center as you described is a good start, but you have to check that the distributor rotor is pointing to the #1 firing position. Here is a good video on Youtube about how this works:


Once you do this you'll know everything mechanically is set to where it's supposed to be. As long as the rest of the mechanics and the ignition & fuel systems are working (even marginally) it should at least fire up. Sounds like this should do it & hopefully the rest I put below won't have to be addressed. If it still won't start & run here are some other ideas:

Did you set the air gap on the new pickup coil? If air gap is set too close you might still get spark, but it might be inconsistent. Too big of a gap spark will be weak or missing. This is the space between the coil's face & one of the blades on the reluctor ring. The gap spec is .004" to .012". You are supposed to use a non-magnetic feeler gauge to set this, because a steel feeler gauge will "stick" to the magnet in the coil, & could cause you to think the "drag" you are feeling when setting the gap is correct when it isn't. Since most of us do not have non-magnetic feeler gauges, I just use 2 credit cards/debit cards to set the gap at .006" (each card is .003" thick). Or, you can use a decently new(er) dollar bill folded in half. The paper thickness is .0043" so that gets you .0086".

Good news is that since you report that you are getting spark you Ignitor (Toyota name for Ignition Control Module) is probably good. Those things are expensive to replace.

Did you set the gap on the electrodes of the new spark plugs? Gap spec is .031". Did you use a Torque Wrench when installing the spark plugs? Torque Spec on the plugs is 10-12 foot pounds. Do not exceed this or you may strip out the threads in the head (aluminum) & cause a loss of compression.

You didn't say if part of the $7K spend was in rebuilding the engine or not. If not, you could have a stretched or loose timing chain, which can also throw off your timing. The chain can get slack past about 75K miles due to wear, stretching or broken or missing chain guide(s). The original timing chain guides in the earlier 80's 22R's were known for this as they were plastic. Toyota replaced them later with steel backed guides that were more durable.

You can check for chain stretch/looseness manually without the engine running or ripping the engine apart to check it. Remove the distributor cap so you can see the rotor. Use a ratchet & socket on the Crank Pulley Bolt to manually turn the engine over until the mark on the pulley lines up with a mark on your timing pointer. While doing this watch your rotor to see that it turns (it should). Then very slowly rotate engine pulley back in the opposite direction, noting the first moment that the rotor moves again, then stop. If your chain is good the rotor should move almost instantly. Using the timing scale on the timing pointer as a reference, if it takes 5 degrees or more of pulley movement before the rotor moves, you have a loose timing chain or broken guide.

Those are the main things I'd check after resetting the static timing on the engine & distributor & if it still wouldn't start or at least fire up. After that I'd check:

Fuel Pump - Is it working? Electric or mechanical, stock or aftermarket? You mentioned you have a Weber 38. The stock Toyota fuel pumps are rated at 5-8 PSI fuel pressure. Weber's are notorious for not liking anything over 3 PSI so a stock pump could be flooding out the carb. Check your oil for strong gas smell. You'd need a pressure regulator to stop this problem, or an aftermarket fuel pump rated for 3 PSI.
Fuel Lines/Filter - All fuel lines connected up right & not leaking at the connection? Leaking line connections (even very small ones can drop fuel pressure & starve the carb for gas. Fuel filter installed in correct direction? They are usually designed to only flow 1 way & have an arrow on them somewhere to show flow direction.
As a last resort I'd compression check the engine to make sure it's "healthy" & doesn't have some other hidden mechanical problems.

Only other thing I can tell you is that with older vehicles like this, it always pays to get in there & verify what's really going on with it instead of assuming anything. You'l save yourself a lot of guesswork & aggravation. Learned from experience here. Please post up what you find out so we know what happened.