Distributor replacement - lost the scribe

[Falco]

Howdy,

As you might know I'm in the middle of my head replacement project. When I removed the distributor, I made a sign on the lower intake manifold (and on the distributor too). However in the meantime I made my lower intake manifold cleaned and lost the sign on it. What to do now? Could somebody give me a step-by-step instruction hogy should I set my timing correctly? I roughly remember which direction the rotor pointed to, but that's seems to be a bit risky.

I know, I'm plain stupid.

TIA,

 

[smeagol]

Here's how I'd do it

drop the distributor in

take #1 plug out

Rotate motor by hand, and watch the balancer for degree location. Put your finger over the spark plug hole, and feel for the compression stroke. That will come up to #1 firing. By doing this, you should be able to watch for and find #1 TDC on your balancer (assuming it's accurate). The compression stroke will have the strongest pressure on your finger.

If you put your distributor cap on, the rotor will point where the #1 plug wire needs to go. If you'd like it to point somewhere else, pull the distributor and drop it back in place. As long as you do the first part correctly, it is stuck on #1 firing, and you can reference on that.

I think that covered it all, but the most important part is understanding the 4 stroke pattern and identifying #1 firing.

intake - compression -ignition - combustion - exhaust

180 deg 180 deg (TDC) 180 deg 180 deg (TDC again)


intake - piston going down, intake valve open

compression - piston comes back up BOTH valves shut (pushes air out the spark plug hole)

ignition happens at top dead center

combustion pushes piston back down

exhaust - piston comes back up, exhaust valve opens

Understand that the piston is at TDC twice in the sequence, but you have to make sure that you are firing at TDC on the compression stroke. Firing it on the exhaust means that you " are 180 degrees " out as you have heard. This is when you'd get the sputtering popping, no run condition.

Doing this method should get you close enough to run the motor, then to check it with a timing gun.

 

[Falco]

Thanks Brian, I really appreciate it.

BTW, if I'm over this, I'll be really close to put back my injectors. I sent you a mail a few weeks earlier about 50's if you remember. Could we talk about this?

Later,

 

[smeagol]

[aol] YOU'VE GOT MAIL [/aol]

 

[Falco]

Done...

Done...

Just wanted to say thank again, I just finished this part of the job. My timing should be right now. Two additions, which I found usefull. First you can find the right TDC (ignition point) with putting in the pushrods and checking valve movement. When both intake and exhaust valves are closed and the crank's sign at 0 you are there. I also checked this with the method Brian suggeseted using a light paper to check air movement via the spark plug hole.

Peace,