Timing refresher

[Ridemywideglide]

Hey guys, I'm looking for a quick answer/refresher on timing these things. I've only done my own once and that was a few years ago.


So I've got a guage on the piston for tdc, and the snapon timing tool in the pump, I get 5.1 total lift on the pump from the time it starts to move, and the time I hit TDC.. So this should mean it's already timed at about 17* should it not?

Thanks

 

[ahale2772]

best way to go about it is to stick your timing tool in the pump, and find the base circle of the cam by rotating the engine in its normal rotation. zero your dial indicator. once you do that, pull your timing pin on the back of the case, and continue to rotate the motor slowly until you can feel the timing pin hole on the back of the cam gear with your finger. once you can move the pin into the hole you know the engine is at TDC and whatever your gauge reads is your MM of lift.

 

[Ridemywideglide]

that's basically what I did. I reverse rotated the engine back until the pump dial quit dropping, about 1/4-1/3 rotation. Couldn't get the dial back to a zero, but I made not of the number at that point, then rotated normal direction back up to TDC on piston (also set with a 2nd dial, and matches the cam pin) and made not of that reading on the pump dial, which comes out to 5.16mm of pump lift at TDC.

I think your saying the same thing, am I correct? It should be 17* based on the chart I found via google.

 

[ahale2772]

As long as the chart says 5.1 is 17 deg you got it right

 

[Ridemywideglide]

Well 5.16 on the 180 pump is leaning toward 17.5*, and repeated do-overs come in within the 5.16 to 5.17 marks everytime, so I'm calling it 17.25* and leaving it...

Was told nothing has ever been done to this motor... Obviously that's not quite the truth..

Thanks for the help. :Cheer:

 

[K204DR]

why can't you zero the gauge? put it in deep to like 10 or so, back it up til it quits moving, and reset it at zero. roll back forward to top dead and you got an exact reading. not real hard. on my gauge you move it out close to zero, and the outer dial edge actually moves to let you put it exactly on zero.

 

[Ridemywideglide]

I can't get to "zero" because when I put the long extension on the gauge and put it all in the pump nice and tight it's on 5+ at pump cam base circle.

So I zero'd the dial with small gauge on 5, which I could call "zero", then watched it run up to 10.2, which I could call "5.2"... Make sense?

And to answer Disturbed's deleted question, I'm using a dial indicator on top of the piston to determine TDC. I'm calling TDC the point where that dial changes direction. I don't think I've read anywhere about using a degree wheel on the balancer to get a more accurate reading on TDC. I may be wrong, feel free to post again and leave it up.