[TAQuest]

Originally Posted by Formulajones

Well, you would need to get the #1 piston up to TDC on the compression stroke and then look at the chain. You will likely find the dots lined up at 12 o'clock crank and 6 o'clock cam gear as you would expect, or possibly 12 o'clock crank and 12 o'clock cam gear.

No problem with doing that. Line up the dots as usual. Looks like I need to rotate it around once to get the cam gear dot where it is supposed to be.

[Formulajones]

yep

[TAQuest]

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0zp0...r_Township,_MI
The above picture shows where I'm at now.
The crank gear has multiple dots on it and none of them line up with the dot on the cam gear.

[TAQuest]

Question;
Can I get a simple timing set and install it lining up the dots and be good to go?

[Singleton]

How are you verifying TDC of #1? Really need a piston stop to be at absolute TDC. Then if the dots don’t line up, remove chain, rotate crank until they do

[ta man]

Is that at TDC ?

[TAQuest]

What I usually do when installing a timing set is bring up the dot and see if the valves are closed. With one dot it's easy.

[TAQuest]

I need to determine what's going on with these multiple dots and keyways.

[ta man]

Just by looking at that..the cam was installed wrong. I would personally degree in the new cam to play it safe. No sense tearing it apart twice just to find the new cam and or timing set is off a bit.I would reuse the current timing chain set since it has adjustment. Spend the money on a degree wheel.

[STEELCITYFIREBIRD]

Slip the cover/ balancer back on and line up TDC. ...compression stroke Pop the cap on the dizzy and make sure the rotor is pointed near # 1 on the cap. Not 180 out.

Take care or remove the two sleeves that align the front cover, don’t want to have to go fishing in the pan for them.😳... or anything else! (Stuff some rags or duct tape the opening.)

[jonmachota78]

What I'm seeing is that the timing set is installed so it give 0 advance or retard hence the dot by the crank key. Counting the exposed teeth on the cam gear it looks pretty close to six o'clock. The dot on the crank gear tooth adjacent to the crank key should like up with the dot on the cam gear So.
it looks like the cam is installed 2 teeth advanced!

[ta man]

Each keyway will have a corresponding mark for either straight up 2 or 4 degree advanced or 2 or 4 degree retarded to the left of each slot.
A simple way to tell is bring up your crank dot that is just to the left of your keyway to the top. Take a look where your cam gear dot winds up..I bet it is pretty far off.

[Singleton]

Looks to me that the crank gear is installed correctly on the keyway. The red arrow shows “4A”, which would be for 4 degrees advanced. Probably on the other side out of view is “4R”.

If #1 is truly at TDC in this pic, then is was installed a few teeth off.

[TAQuest]

Originally Posted by Singleton

Looks to me that the crank gear is installed correctly on the keyway. The red arrow shows “4A”, which would be for 4 degrees advanced. Probably on the other side out of view is “4R”.

If #1 is truly at TDC in this pic, then is was installed a few teeth off.

Makes sense. Thanks. Just needed someone who knows to tell me the deal on the key ways.
I have installed cams and you don't need to degree them. Lots of people do it.

[TAQuest]

What I'm going to do now is make sure the valves are closed on # one, that would mean it's on compression stroke an TDC when dot on crank gear is up.

Let me know if this is wrong. It's how I installed the new cam on my 69 428 and it worked excellent. I put the edelbrock performer package on that engine back in 1990 and it was a great engine.

[steve25]

Yes, and number 6 Exh will be opening also.

[ta man]

Originally Posted by Singleton

Looks to me that the crank gear is installed correctly on the keyway. The red arrow shows “4A”, which would be for 4 degrees advanced. Probably on the other side out of view is “4R”.

If #1 is truly at TDC in this pic, then is was installed a few teeth off.

The crank needs to be rotated clockwise for TDC if this is the 0 keyway.

[Singleton]

Originally Posted by ta man

The crank needs to be rotated clockwise for TDC if this is the 0 keyway.

Yes, I missed that. So remove chain, rotate crank until dot up, then move cam to align dots, reinstall chain

[TAQuest]

Now here's the problem I have. There's more than one dot on the crank gear. How do I know which dot? This is a cluster**** having more than one dot.

[jonmachota78]

That's the 0 keyway. Just jump 2 teeth so the dots line up and you'll be golden!