924 timing

Replaced head gasket on 81 924. According to Haynes manual cam pully aligns
with pointer and dot on BACK aligned and crank aligns with pointer on pump
and a mark somewhere on crank pully. I've chemically cleaned the crank pully
and now media blasted it but have found no mark anywhere. How does this
invisible mark relate to TDC? I tried installing belt with the timing mark
on flywheel @ 0 but no luck. Also on the distributor just to be sure, I am
lining up the verticle line machined in the rotor shaft with the mark on the
distributor body. Is this correct or do I line up #1 to this mark. 2 days in
the garage and all I can get is either backfire through intake or ignition
with exhaust valves open and some nice flames, exhast manifold still
unbolted.