Crank pully timing marks on cylinder 2 and 3?

[MRG1965]

HI all, looking for a bit of advise and confirmation I'm not going mad, although my wife tells me that ship sailed a long time ago!

 

Following on my from recent purchased of a 1964 TR4 I'm working through the little jobs and have now purchased a basic timing light (no advance function, just point and shoot).

Now to the confusion, after spending a few minutes trying to find the marks on the crank pulley using the light and failing miserably, I decided to manually turn the engine and find the marks, well marks is a little over the top as all I found was a single cut in the edge of the pulley along with the pointer on the front camshaft gear cover. And promptly applied some white paint to highlight it.

Put the light on again and hey presto could not see it, little confused and in a moment of sheer desperation and contrary to all that I know about engines and ignition systems I put the strobes pick over the number 2 lead, and the mark appeared!!!

 

Given the workshop manual and the Haynes manual is very sketchy (clearly predates the invention of strobe lights for this purpose) and refer to moving the screw on the vacuum advance unit to get the best performance after setting static timing.

 

Am I going mad or can the crank pulley be assembled incorrectly and the timing mark be 90 degrees out from where it should be?

 

The car is running and starting fine, just wanted check timing.

 

Standard Lucas D25 using points with what looks like the original wide belt pulley set-up.

[pfenlon]

Finding TDC is a relatively simple job, I "broke a plug" and then put a small nylon extension piece so that when it was screwed in, the piston would come in contact with said modded plug, then mark the pulley.

 

then turn the crank in the opposite direction, until the piston hits the modded plug, mark the pulley.

 

The centre of these 2 marks then MUST be TDC. Modding the plug isn't easy, don't forget to take out the other plugs too and turn carefully by hand, its another forum trick I gleaned from another, but it works.

[MRG1965]

HI Pfenlon, yes this would be my next stage to confirm suspicions, I'd planned to carefully put a long screw driver through the plug hole to confirm that No1 TDC was where the marks were or 90 degrees out.

 

But thanks for the tip.

[peejay4A]

I'm not sure if this is even possible but I wonder if whoever built the engine used number two cylinder as the reference for the distributor installation? Why not try bringing the pulley marker to the TDC pointer with number 2 cylinder on its compression stroke (thumb over the spark plug hole) and having a look at which plug lead the rotor arm is pointing to.

Edited July 24, 2014 by peejay4A

[Lebro]

No. 2 cylinder will not be 90° out, it will be 180° out.

If marked correctly the crank pulley will have a notch to correspond with TDC on cylinders 1, & 4.

180° round from there will be the TDC position for cylinders 2, & 3.

 

It is possible to assemble the the standard pulley (if it is the same as TR3) in 6 different positions on the crank hub,

because it is bolted to the hub using 6 bolts. Yours seems to have assembled 180° out.

 

Simple fix is:

1) do your timing using plug lead 2, or 3

2) put a second mark on pulley 180° round from the existing one

 

 

Bob.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Lebro

[Geko]

I'm not sure if this is even possible but I wonder if whoever built the engine used number two cylinder as the reference for the distributor installation? Why not try bringing the pulley marker to the TDC pointer with number 2 cylinder on its compression stroke (thumb over the spark plug hole) and having a look at which plug lead the rotor arm is pointing to.

It would be interesting to see towards which cylinder (or which inner wing ) the rotor is pointing at "pulley TDC", a picture would help

Edited July 24, 2014 by Geko

[Graham Harris]

The crankshaft pulley is assembled in two pieces and the one with the v cut in it has been put together 180% out of place, it will need to be reassembled .

Graham

[Lebro]

Just made a correction to my post above - having looked at my pulley

[MRG1965]

Thanks, my suspican was that the pulley was at fault as it did not look like a single machined unit with a key way that would only fit one way on the crank shaft pulley key. I'm happy to use no 2 plug lead until I get around to putting a narrow belt conversion along with alternator, although I'm not sure to go with an alternator that looks like an alternator or pay for the privilege for an alternator that looks like a dynamo, but that a whole other threads...

[MRG1965]

HI, Graham, my pulley looks as you describe yours and looking at a diagram from the manual sent by Mick Richards, I can now see someone has indeed put the whole thing back together misaligned, scare over.

 

And yes you're correct 180 degrees out, not 90 degrees, was thinking distributor rotor position when talking about crank (opps).

[RogerH]

Hi MRG,

have you got a name we can call you by?

As stated the pulley is upside down (180' out).

Ideally sort the pulley. But you could simply put a new painted timing mark on the pulley

 

Roger

[Lebro]

That's what I said

[MRG1965]

Hi, sorry very rude of me, quite new to this whole online forum thing.

 

My name is Mark.

 

Yes really should take the fan off and sort the pully, but plug lead 2 is working for me at present, add it to the list...

 

Thanks for all the input.

 

Mark

 

Ps just off to Donnington Park for the weekend to see what goes on there.

And then Harrogate in August.