timing

is the timing mark on the crank pulley lined up with the key way on the crank or is it turned to the right a few degrees. any help or pics would be greatly appreciated.

thanks in advance

bump anyone?

I'm not sure what you are asking by "turned to the right". The engine is at TDC when the keyway points sraight up. The timing mark will point at TDC on the timing cover at this point, which sould lead by a few degrees.

You can do what I did when I was making the toothed wheel pulley for my EDIS setup, and use your digicam to snap a shot of the keyway and its orientation, where you couldnt normally see it.

well i have the bottom sprocket straight up and down aligning with the mark on the block, and the 1 and arrow pointed up at the mark on block. i dropped my distributor in and it runs fine it seems, but when i put a light on it the light is running where the sprocket was on the bottom sprocket when lining the belt up. not even close the timing marks on the timing cover. what is the deal. this is the only place that the truck runs worth a crap

the crank pulley can only go on in one position. The cam however can be timed several different ways, the numbers are not cylinder indicators but cam timing indicators. Mine points at 2 with the crank at TDC.

When you stabbed the distributor in, did you make sure a) the #1 piston was indeed at TDC? and b) that the rotor button was pointing at the mark on the distributor housing? It takes a couple stabs to get it right, because the mesh gears mean the distributor twists as it is going in. YOu want it to end up pointing at the mark, not lining up before the stab and allowing it to twist to wherever. Pointing at the mark is TDC for the #1 rotor tower, obviously if you let it twist forward it will be 180 out.

Let me know. If you are having a hard time finding TDC #1, what I do is take out the plugs (so the engine is easy to turn by hand)and put a coat hanger down in the #1 plug hole, then turn the engine by hand till the coat hanger tops out and starts to go back down. I did this actually last time I timed the motor because I like you thought the numbers on the cam pulley were indicative of cylinder numbers till I found out they were advance and retard marks.

Hope this helps.

i have the number one and the arrow pointed up on the cam like the book says. and i have the key way on the crank lined up like the book says. and the distributor is lined up correctly on number one. and it runs fine. but why is the timing mark pointing straight up and down instead of to the right on the timing indicators on the cover.

did you disconnect the vacuum line to the advance canister on the side of the distributor? (and plug the line so you dont have a vacuum leak) Normal advance at 1000 rpm is a lot more than the +10 mark on the timing cover, and it will not read correctly.

I must have misunderstood your question the first time you asked it, sorry for the complication.

yes i did unplug the vacuum line and i did not plug it off which do i plug off the vaccum line running to the carb or the nipple on the distributor. and i heard that this would only make it off by two degrees. thanks for all the help and sorry for the confusion

you plug the manifold line. The vacuum canister is not a vacuum source so you can leave it. Make sure there arent two vacuum canisters also. Mine had two and one had a vacuum leak! Talk about chasing a problem, I just could NOT find the vacuum leak. I ended up sucking on the one line and then holding it with my finger and the idle smoothed out. The other line to the second canaister (they were double stacked) did nothing.

It will be off by at least 10, not two, which is static advance at idle. Since you should be checking it at 1000-1200 rpm, it would be even more, I think my edis programming called for +27 at 1200 rpm no load.

Have you twisted the distributor to get it running maybe? That would dial in even more advance. Remember that it is at zero degrees only when you have the rotor button pointing at the mark when the engine is at TDC. If you move the distributor at all, it will change the advance.

the truck is running fine i was just trying to make sense of why the mark is so far off from where it should be