Pulled the Mess that was my Timing Chain....

Haha, that would be great! I actually came on here to report some new findings. I am still having trouble when idling, but with a vacuum gauge and timing light hooked up, I was able to do some more critical work. I haven't been able to really work and diagnose the problem, and it's frustrating that my teacher is focusing on other things like the alternator belt being a tad loose. (It's still operating normally according to the dash.)

Started right up, like normal. Timing light has a tach meter on it and it read at 1500 RPM at startup! Goodness! As we allowed it to warm up, it cut off it's idle slowly like it should, down from 1450-1500, to 1200-1300, and then finally it was slowly going down to running rough at 800-900 RPMs. It was struggling to run smooth and was hunting for idle speed from the 830's-960's, occasionally going and dropping into the 760's and then surging up. Finally, it went down to below 760 and it sputtered out and died. Timing was at about 17-20 BTDC.


Vacuum testing. Hooked it up to the carb where the hose would connect to the air filter. The vacuum at first was very rough, at around 16-17 mm hg, but when I placed my hand over the carb to choke the air up (I did feel suction), and the idle raised and evened out from 1200 to 1400 (this was when it was warming up), and the vacuum shot up to 19-21. So we placed the air filter on, and now the vacuum hovers at 19-20.5, slowly bouncing in between them and changing whenever the idle goes up or down. When the RPMs tried to slow down to 700, it really began to drop down to 15, lower and then it died, with air filter on.

Choke, I noticed was wide open all the way upon startup, and didn't seem to change position as it was warming up, but then we placed the air filter on in an attempt to even out the idle and did not see if it was changing at all.

Screwing the initial idling screw in about one and a half turns did not seem to change idle too much.

I did find an unplugged vacuum hose during the warmup process. Plugging it in to the round circle vacuum thing on the passenger side (forgot to take a picture), it helped even out the idle at around 800-900.


According to one of these vacuum testing worksheets I have from the previous shop teacher who printed them out, a steady back and fourth from 1-2 points on vacuum means spark plug gaps are spaced too close. I am going back in after school today and -sigh- after tightening the alternator belt just that one touch more, can go about to fixing the problem. Did feel good to prove to my classmates though that it DID indeed run!