Ign timing

[stefan]

Ok how dose this work? If the white mark is supposed to line up with the pointer, what is the scale for? Is it ever supposed to flash by the scale?

I checked it today, and the white mark flashes about 3/4" away from the pointer (its off towards the front to the car)

Now i would have tried adjusting it, but my idle is off. when its hot it idles around 900-1000rpm, so i thought that had to be fixed before touching the timing?

[Festiva_tunner]

the scale is used to set "advance" and "retard" manually bring the pulley mark up to the mark on the motor verify that your piston is in TDC, check your valve lash and then set your timming using the light, its not uncommon to be 10 degrees advanced

[skeeters_keeper]

10* towards teh front of the car is 10* retarded, not advanced.

your idle will affect where the mark is, so try to fix that first, but if its idling at 900rpm its not that high and you should still be able to set the timing ok, just check it again after you fix the idle (of course if the timing is too far off that could be the cause of your idle, in which case you have to adjust the timing, adjust the idle, adjust the timing, etc until things are lined up nicely).

here's what you should do:

manually set #1 to TDC by turning the crank pulley (lign the crank sprocket marks up and then verify that the cam pulley marks are at 12 and 3 o'clock). look where your white mark on the crank pulley is, thats where it is for #1 TDC. It will probably be right at the little pointer, or perhaps about 10* in front of it. Mine was right at the pointer.
Now you have to options, if the mark is 10* in front of the pointer you can time the engine so that it is firing right at the pointer (which would be 10* BTDC), OR you can make your own mark. Thats what i did, with it still set to TDC take some chalk or something and mark the crank pulley by the timing SCALE, where it says "0". Now you have a mark that can be used on the timing scale instead of the dumb pointer. fire the engine up and set the timing to the 10* spot on the timing scale per your new mark. This makes setting the timing more precise than trying to use the pointer, and you can advance/retard it much easier if you choose to.


hope that helps a bit!

[WmWatt]

When setting the engine to TDC it has to be on the compression stroke. An easy way to check is for the rotor on the distributor to be pointing to the spark plug wire for the #1 cylinder.