Missing timing marks

[krock26]

I recently pulled an engine out of a 94 Aspire for my Festiva, but it wasn't until I put the Festy distributor in that I realized the crankshaft pulley was missing its timing marks. I can find tdc but is there any way to remark the pulley?

[bravekozak]

Use a small saw to cut a small notch.

[Studebaker]

You can time the engine without a timing light. Just roate (advance) the dizzy a little at a time until you feel the power come in. If the engine starts pinging. You have advanced it to much. I normally do this driving to and from work. Drive stop adjust dizzy drive stop adjust dizzy.

[WmWatt]

There should be a notch in in the pulley. It comes from the factory with a dab of yellow paint in the notch but that may have fallen off.

[mikemounlio]

Pull spark plug #1 out. Put a long rod in. Spin crank with a wrench till the rod is up all the way. Thays tdc. Thats you 0°. Mark the pully and time from there.

[mikemounlio]

Just use a paint parker and or a punch. Or a knife. Just gotta make a scar on the surface.

[WmWatt]

Mike is right but I think you might want TDC on the compression stroke? For that you may need to take off the distributor cap and check that the rotor is pointing to the #1 spark plug position? Not sure about this.

[FestYboy]

TDC is TDC regardless of the stroke. Remember, the crank rotates twice per cycle.

[WmWatt]

"TDC is TDC regardless of the stroke. Remember, the crank rotates twice per cycle."
So the pulley rotates twice but the plug and timing light only fire on one of those two rotations which means the timing mark is illuminated on every second pass?
If I understand that right TDC stroke doesn't matter for checking timing but does for adjusting valve lash?

[krock26]

Okay, but there are no timing marks on the timing cover. I thought there were supposed to be marks on the pulley.

[krock26]

Also I finally did find the notch on the pulley but it's about 45 degrees off from where it should be

[mikemounlio]

Thats how mine is as well. I just found tdc and took a knife to the pulley then painted it white. good as new now.

[dalebwilson]

Correct mechanical timing is achieved when the crankshaft timing mark is straight up at 12 o'clock and the camshaft timing marks are at 12 and 3 o'clock. Your timing belt should be installed at these settings and the #1 piston is at TDC.


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[krock26]

Now this engine is doing the same things that the old engine was doing, specifically the idle is garbage and it bogs down when you open the throttle, but surges when it's closed. The only thing that came with the new engine was the block and headband so I reused most of the old engine stuff. Any ideas?

[FestYboy]

"TDC is TDC regardless of the stroke. Remember, the crank rotates twice per cycle."
So the pulley rotates twice but the plug and timing light only fire on one of those two rotations which means the timing mark is illuminated on every second pass?
If I understand that right TDC stroke doesn't matter for checking timing but does for adjusting valve lash?

Yes, but only when looking at the correlation between crank and pulley timing. As for actual ignition timing, all 3 things need to line up (cam, crank, and pulley).

Krock26, you say there are no marks on the cover? There should then be evidence of the tab that has the marks having been cut off. There are 2 marks cast into the valve cover to set cam timing so if the crank and cam line up, in theory you could pick an arbitrary mark to set ignition timing.

A while back I was informed about a condition of some aspire cams being timed incorrectly via the dowel pin location. You may want to degree the cam to verify its correctness.