Timing problem

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I have not tried the tool yet.
I've considered the balancer could be off.

All I've got to go on is. The timing mark on the balancer set to 0° put the distributor pointing to the number 1. And a visual on the piston through the park plug hole. All these check out simultaneously.

The distributor number 1 is pointing towards the front of the car in the middle as shown in the picture and the advance cannister is pointed alsoas shwn in the picture.

It all shows normal.
Except........this puts the car very advanced and backfires out the intake.


Now if I move the distributor counter clockwise. It retards the engine and I can get it to start but not stay running. The advance is pointed to the intake bolt hole or the number 8 cylinder in the picture.

The problem I'm having is that the problem makes no sense to me. No matter where I put the distributor the car won't idle anyway. I can at least keep it running with feathering the throttle.

It's like I'm setting it up right. It's just not doing what I want.
 
Exactly.........and that's why it doesn't make any sense. Literally turning it counterclockwise is retarding the timing.

I'm going to do pictures of all this tomorrow.
 
Are you sure that the distributor is good??? Have you tried another one JIC???
 
Lotsa things to verify and eliminate questions. "IF" the vac can was.pointed at cyl#8 you're in the right area.
Start at the beginning
 
krazykuda said:
Have you verified TDC with a TDC stop tool???

How do you know that the timing marks on the balancer are not off/wrong???

You have to start with the basics and work your way up....

Until you know where your crank TDC is, you're chasing your tail...
Click to expand...

^^THIS^^ The only time distributor position matters in relation to "the books" is.....

If TDC is indeed correct

If the cam is in time

If the intermediate gear is in "by the book"

If the drive tang on the distributor is same as OEM and IT MIGHT NOT be

Otherwise

Get and use a positive stop. I've had this one since I made it in the 1970's......

stop2-jpg.jpg


If you buy one..........

s-l225.jpg


Make sure you incorporate a lock nut to immobilize the plunger, otherwise 'it wobbles.'

Remove battery ground, remove no1 plug, look in or probe and wrench the engine so the piston is "down a ways." Screw the stop into no1......... The dimension of my old one works well

Wrench the engine around until the piston stops on the device. Make a temporary mark onto the damper under TDC

Rotate engine opposite direction until the piston AGAIN stops on the device. Make a second mark on the dampener under TDC.

You now have two marks and if the old one is correct, it will be halfway between those two marks.

THE DISTRIBUTOR. It does not really matter how the gear/ distributor is installed you can CLOSE YOUR EYES and throw them both in!!!!!

Bring the engine up no1 ready to fire (compression.) ........by doing this:

Put your finger in no1, bump the engine until you feel compression. Look for the marks "coming up" as you wrench the engine, BUT DO NOT put the marks on TDC. Put them instead WHERE YOU WANT timing to be IE 12BTC, 15BTC, etc.

Now look at the distributor. Rotate the body CW (retard) and slowly advance (CCW) until the breaker points open (use a light or meter) or until the reluctor is lined up with the pickup coil.

WHEREVER THE ROTOR POINTS is where you plug in the no1 wire. If the gear is wrong or the drive tang different then no1 WILL NOT MATCH "by the book"

Set the timing with a light and YOU ARE DONE
 
67Dart273 said:
^^THIS^^ The only time distributor position matters in relation to "the books" is.....

If TDC is indeed correct

If the cam is in time

If the intermediate gear is in "by the book"

If the drive tang on the distributor is same as OEM and IT MIGHT NOT be

Otherwise

Get and use a positive stop. I've had this one since I made it in the 1970's......

View attachment 1715082156

If you buy one..........

View attachment 1715082157

Make sure you incorporate a lock nut to immobilize the plunger, otherwise 'it wobbles.'

Remove battery ground, remove no1 plug, look in or probe and wrench the engine so the piston is "down a ways." Screw the stop into no1......... The dimension of my old one works well

Wrench the engine around until the piston stops on the device. Make a temporary mark onto the damper under TDC

Rotate engine opposite direction until the piston AGAIN stops on the device. Make a second mark on the dampener under TDC.

You now have two marks and if the old one is correct, it will be halfway between those two marks.

THE DISTRIBUTOR. It does not really matter how the gear/ distributor is installed you can CLOSE YOUR EYES and throw them both in!!!!!

Bring the engine up no1 ready to fire (compression.) ........by doing this:

Put your finger in no1, bump the engine until you feel compression. Look for the marks "coming up" as you wrench the engine, BUT DO NOT put the marks on TDC. Put them instead WHERE YOU WANT timing to be IE 12BTC, 15BTC, etc.

Now look at the distributor. Rotate the body CW (retard) and slowly advance (CCW) until the breaker points open (use a light or meter) or until the reluctor is lined up with the pickup coil.

WHEREVER THE ROTOR POINTS is where you plug in the no1 wire. If the gear is wrong or the drive tang different then no1 WILL NOT MATCH "by the book"

Set the timing with a light and YOU ARE DONE
Click to expand...

Finally, someone gets what I've been saying all along... :BangHead: :BangHead: :BangHead:
 
There have been given 2 procedures in the past page of posts and you appear to not be following either, or doing so in a halfway fashion that is missing a critical factor:

IF the damper is at TDC, then the engine can be ready to fire EITHER #1 OR #6. You keep putting it at #1 and that has a 50/50 chance of being dead wrong.

Follow one procedure or the other but stop doing it halfway like you have. Do it like it has been described and it WILL be right and you will know for sure if it is timing or if you have to move on to other problems.

Are you saying that if you move the distributor CCW that the timing on your engine actually retards? Is this waht you are actually seeing, or is this what you think will happen? Moving the distributor CCW ADVANCES the timing.....if things are working right. The timing mark on the crank relative to the timing cover marks should also move CCW when you rotate the distributor CCW. That is advanced, not retarded...
 
Yes.....I'm watching the counterclockwise retard the timing. It should advance it.
When I put the engine at true 0° that I can tell. The canister is parallel with the back of the engine and backfires out the intake. It may have jumped a tooth on the chain. I've never had that happen before.

When I turn it counterclockwise and it's pointed towards the last bolt hole on the intake. It retards it and runs better. I know something is off. It's more than likely something I'm doing wrong. Usually it's cut and dry. I put the distributor in and st it to 0° or a little advanced......hit it with a light and turn it till it runs right. This time the distributor was never taken out and the car ran ok. I just moved it a little and it wouldn't run after that. When it was set right it was pointed at the the last bolt hole

Today I'm going to go in there and do the procedures with a piston stop. Get pictures of what I'm dealing with. My friends came down there and they didn't have much time but they didn't understand it either. The starter went out so we had to stop.
 
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If you are using a delay (dial back) timing light, THAT may be screwing you up. Beg or borrow a "regular" light

Also.....you CERTAIN you are looking at the marks correctly?
 
These symptoms are a classic example of bad cam timing, and Blu in post #72 has got you covered.

One thing I have been able to do if the cam timing is off only a little, is this;
with the engine running, however you get it running, and as slow as possible, and with the Vcan defeated, I just push the Vcan around until the engine speed peak; WITHOUT regard to the actual numbers. Then reduce the idle speed, and repeat the tugging on the can. And continue until the lowest idle speed is achieved. Then check the manifold vacuum, and with no manifold vacuum leakage;
With CORRECT cam timing:
The manifold vacuum should fall between 11* and 22* depending on the rpm and size of cam.
A stock 318 for instance will hit the high number perhaps as early as 1500rpm, to as low as maybe 15 at 650rpm.
A hot 360 might not even pull 11 at 900rpm

When the cam timing goes out,manifold vacuum takes a dive, and it takes a lot of throttle opening to achieve only a little rpm.And if the intake valves are still open when the spark arrives and lights the fire, well, then the expanding gasses rush out the open valves and into the intake. You hear is as popping and call it back-firing.
I had one 318 a long time ago, that with the 2bbl at WOT, the idle speed was just above stalling, my guess was maybe 400 rpm at most. Upon inspection,the chain had jumped several teeth.
Blu described the short-cut for diagnoses. I highly recommend you start there.
 
You said
glhx said:
Exactly.........and that's why it doesn't make any sense. Literally turning it counterclockwise is retarding the timing.
Click to expand...

You're not listening;

4spdragtop said:
Rotating vac can ccw is advancing it NOT retarding it.
Click to expand...

Pulling on the Vcan towards the radiator is ADVANCING the timing.

If your timing light says otherwise something is wrong. The only time I have ever seen this is when the pick-up polarity was wrong, and this was discovered immediately after the install of the new pick-up; not on a long-time-running engine.With the reversed polarity, I could set the idle timing, BUT, as soon as the rpm was increased the timing would begin jumping around from retard to advance and everywhere in between; and it would drop sparks too, ran terrible and included popping in the exhaust with an occasional pop thru the carb. Yeah that was a headscratcher.
There is one other possibility, and that might be rotor phasing, but I think Blu is on the proper first course of action.
 
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Verify TDC #1 with piston stop. Then lift off cap and take pic of where rotor is pointing and post it.
Then check back.
 
Without moving anything at all and you put distributor cap on, is the rotor pointing at the spot on the cap where #1 plug wire plugs onto?
Sorry not sure what the 2nd pic is....
 
Yes. It's pointing to the number 1
The second pic is the piston at tdc inside the spark plug hole on the compression stroke
 
36177879460_0b9d27354c_z.jpg
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I have to move the distributor counter clockwise 40° to this spot to stop backfiring out the intake.

In this picture tdc on the number 1 has the rotor pointed at 8

It's almost like it's jumped a tooth
 
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its like

To get the car to even run.
Top dead center when the piston is up on he number 1.
We have to turn the distributor to number 8 wire to get it to run right

As long as I keep pumping gas into it when it's pointed closer to 8 the car will run
 
To me it looks like in picture 2 the #1 wire is running to the left #8. So move all your wires by one and see what you get. I did this a couple of months ago see my previous post
 
I think I see the problem

With the piston at TDC #1 it's valves are not closed, as evidenced by the backfiring. But the next cylinder in the firing order; it's valves are closed. So when the spark goes to #8, voila it runs. However # 8 is near the bottom of it's stroke, so firing it this early means there is not a lot of energy that gets to the flywheel, and hence the throttle has to be opened way further than normal. And of course the vacuum is in the basement low.
So like said earlier; by nm9 in post #72 check the cam timing!
Or at least do a leakdown test; but I'd just go straight to the cam-timing.
 
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finally got it sorted out.

The timing is set at 8°
Vacuum is 19.5
Idle at 700. Drops into gear at 600.
Does this sound right.

I hate to say what it was. Because I was told to check for vacuum leaks.
We kept messing with the timing until we started looking at the carburetor. All the timing marks showed up fine and the balancer and chain was spot on with no variation or looseness on the timing marks. The dead time ended up being perfect.

My buddy started messing with the accelerator pump. Pushing up a little manually. It gave it a more steady stream of gas than the pedal did. The pedal just shot fuel in there.
It wouldn't run without me pumping gas into it to compensate for all the extra air anyway. The accelerator pump showed more of what was going on by adding just enough gas. We wondered if the idle jets were flowing at all.

We looked at it for a few minutes and said......it's fuel starved.
I took the float bowl and main metering block off with the carburetor on the car......checked all the passages. It was all clean. Way more clean than expected. The power valve says 6.5

Sat there staring at it. Looked down at the the carburetor base and saw that the plastic nipple on the largest vacuum port on the side of the carb base was gone. It had fallen off and I didn't notice. I didn't even look at it because I knew I had plugged them all. It was a massive vacuum leak. The plastic nipples are not as tight but so last longer as the rubber ones dry out. Basically it was a fluke. I messed with the timing on a running car. Not knowing this vacuum nipple had fallen off.

It was still backfiring out the intake in true top dead center due to this leak. I still had to move it counterclockwise to get it to start. I've got to go through the logic on that one. It acted advanced when it was retarded and retarded when it was advanced.

It was getting too much air. Moving the timing must have compensated for it and made it run but not idle.

I blocked off the port in about ten seconds. Put the metering and float bowl back on and knew the problem was solved. Then just confidently started timing and adjusting.

Now that it's running right and I know there are no problems I'll go ahead and put the electronic distributor on. Last time I tried.......even with new box I could not get it to fire. I'm not very good at diagnosing carbureted.

What I'm going to do is go back through these posts and mess with it with all this information. Timing it with dwell and points adjust.
Making a piston stop and checking the timing mark for knowledge sake. Learning total timing. All of this stuff. I appreciate your patience and time in helping me with this.

It's still confusing but it is fixed.

One other thing........my oil pressure warmed up at idle is at 20psi.
Is this low?
 
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20 at idle is lots, and it should rise about 10 psi for every 1000 rpm until it trips the relief valve at about 65psi is lots.

Congrats on finding the problem
Even tho nm9 asked about a vacuum leak in post #9
 
Yes he did and I had everything disconnected.
This vacuum cap just happened to fall of as soon as I touched the timing. A coincidence. In mechanics I tend to asssume things a lot. It tends to bite me sometimes. Like......I took care of that....that can't be it. I've tried to counter that thinking with some success.

Then it was bad gas and the timing was off. I fixed the gas and still thought the timing was off. Vacuum I just assumed was covered side I took care of it early on.

I'll take it for a test drive and see if it has any drivability problems. Knowing the condition of the inside of the carburetor now helps ease my mind.
 
Vacuum gauges are wonderful things... LOL. Well, at least it is making sense now. Good deal.

My son may get frustrated with me at times like that.... Something crops up and if the first try or 2 doesn't fix it, I start pulling out the tools and going through the process methodically, one step at a time. It always turns up the culprit. He is catching on.... I think.
 
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