No timing mark....

[Chas]

well i started her up today after i had the motor apart to re-new the intake manifold....i made a movie when i took it apart and pulled the distributor out , so i am sure i have it atleast close as far as the teeth in the distributor goes....the problem im having is i dont see my timing mark on the scale....not even close as i could see....when i turn it twards the front it really bogs down and ther further i go towards the firewall it runs better but i still didnt see the mark...i have it highlighted with white nail polish and the balancer is freshly painted engine orange , so it shoud stick out pretty good....it seems to be idling ok but im not happy with the mark ....could i be off 1 tooth ? please give me some opinions if you have one on this fix...

Thanx , Chas

 

[Bob Chadwick]

Chas,

This is one of those jobs I chickened out of. As I recall, you needed to place two marks, one to mark the location of the distributor housing to the intake to get the distibutor lined up properly with the car and another to line the the rotor with the distributor housing.

Bob

 

[C3forME]

Have you disconnected and plug the vacuum line to the vacuum advance before trying to time it? This will fully retard your timing and should be able to see the timing mark, if not you probably re-installed your distributor incorrectly. A dumb question, but, are you timing it at operating temperture with the high idle off?

 

[wishuwerehere82]

You might be off a tooth,sometimes it's hard to put it back in because the oil pump shaft gets turned a little when you remove the distributor. But if you rotate the distributor enough, the timing mark should come back into range. Are you sure the timing light is attached to #1 cylinder plug wire?
Try this to make sure:
If you manually rotate the crankshaft with a socket wrench on the balancer bolt, you can line the timing mark up at Zero degrees, or top dead center. Both intake and exhaust valves should be closed. If not, rotate it one more full turn until both valves are closed. You will either have to remove the valve cover to comfirm this, or pull the #1 spark plug and verify that you are on the compression stroke(air should come out of the spark plug hole as you rotate the crankshaft and it approaches the zero timing mark).

Then look at the rotor on the distributor, it should be pointing directly at the center of the #1 Cylinder plug wire tower when you put the cap back on.

If it's not, then pull the distributor out again and turn the shaft until it rotates in and points at #1. You may have to rotate the oil pump shaft with a screwdriver to get it to line up with the tab on the bottom of the distributor shaft.

Attach your timing light to the number one plug wire, disconnect your vacuum advance line and plug it, and start the engine, you should see the timing mark flashing pretty close to top dead center. You can set the dymanic timing from there with the light.

 

[Tom B Hargrove]

If you try everything and still no luck, check the harmonic balancer itself to make sure that the outer ring has not moved on the core. If your balancer is original it could have come unbonded and finally have slipped. I had the same problem you have, and after two weeks, I finally found balancer was bad. New balancer and it was back to normal. A long shot, but easy to check.Tom