It's subjective.......advance until it pings under load, then back off a touch. That's a vehicle specific way to do it. This takes a bit of trial-and error driving, but is doable within an hour.
Also, hook up a vac gauge, and advance until you've reached the highest vac, that's another way.
Remember to reset your idle afterwards, as advancing should also increase your idle rpm's. If you've been too happy with the advance, you'll see high coolant temps, so keep an eye on em for a while after the tinkering.
Unless your light has the ability to dial in a specific advance, you won't know how far past the BB you've gone anyway.
So, it sounds like I should play around with it and find what works for my set up. Guess I'll see if I am inclined to get into it tomorrow. I do have an advancing timing light, so I guess I can figure out afterwards where I am at.
Wilie's advice was good. I advanced it a decent amount (the POS timing light I had didn't work, so I just did it guess and by golly). Noticably more power, but noticed some light ping a couple of weeks later. Backed it off a touch (not as far as it had been) and no problems since. Might get around to adjusting by vacuum some time down the road......
I've been curious to try mine for quite some time, but I can see no good way to get in there and get a good sight angle on the window. How'd you manage to get a good angle on that s***, RocDoc?
I've been curious to try mine for quite some time, but I can see no good way to get in there and get a good sight angle on the window. How'd you manage to get a good angle on that s***, RocDoc?
My timing light was a POS, so I just blindly advanced the dizzy, and went for a drive to make sure it wasn't pinging. Can't remember if I rotated the dizzy with it running and listened to how it was idling, or rotated it when shut down and fired it up to see how it was behaving. Like I said above, after a couple weeks I noticed it pinging on a long gentle highway climb, so I backed it off a touch. As I recall, I was able to rotate is though more of the adjustment slot than I expected (maybe a third of it? but that was a couple years ago) and there was a real noticable initial bump in power.
I just had to replace my distributor. Adjusted the timing with an el cheapo light from Harbor Freight! If you have help they can put the light close to the window and move it around - you get enough light to see. Then I sighted from the front - lean over the fan and belts a little ad sight just above and to the right of the closest plug wire to the block. You can get your bearings with a regular flashlight and then spot the window pretty easily from the front.
One question - have you guys ever heard of the distributor being put in and timed correctly - only to have the truck bog down under load? Purrs like a kitten in the drive way and can even rev it to high RPMs but on the road almost no power - someone told me that the rotating arm (two ears) under the rotor inside the distributor can end up set wrong and has to be aligned with its pick up coil. Just curious if you have heard that....
yep. these engines were designed to be happy running mexican ditch water for gas. our gas is a heck of a lot better than what they wil put up with.... 13btdc will run anything you find in the US
yep. these engines were designed to be happy running mexican ditch water for gas. our gas is a heck of a lot better than what they wil put up with.... 13btdc will run anything you find in the US
Already got one, brother. Problem is I'm not entirely sure how accurate the dial is on it. It's a NAPA light, though it wasn't cheap. It looks to be off about two degrees when I do my Duster, but on that the timing marks are on the vibration dampener, which can end up off by several degrees as they wear over the years. A quick check against the markings on our flex plates will verify if the light is accurate or not.
My weekends are swamped lately though, but if you get a day off from work during the week gimme a holler.
Man I tried to set mine today, and I could NOT find any good way to see in that little window at all, with or without the timing light. I could see (and barely get to) the bolt on it from the top, but no luck with anything else. I even tried taping a mirror to my timing light so I could stick it straight down next to the engine and still see towards the back, and that gave me no luck either.
The Cruiser gods were not smiling on me for that one
I've got a vacuum gauge too so I'll try that method. For those of you who've gone that route, where did you connect your gauge to get the best reading? There seems to be no shortage of options on a 3FE....
You're trying way too hard. Advance to the highest idle (turn counterclockwise). Drive, and back it down (*clockwise) until there's no pinging under load. Congratulations. Buy beer with timing light money.
I don't care for absolute #'s when timing our old motors. Too many varying degrees of carbon buildup, cyl wall wear, elevation, dizzy advance curve (2f), typical use, etc. to nail down one perfect number. Hence my 'subjective' statement earlier.
Some folks would consider tuning by ear too neanderthal, and consider a timing light the only way to do it. I agree that knowing/controlling a variable in a motor is generally a good thing. However, there is a practical limit, with varying consequences, in all of it. If it somehow becomes impractical to set a known advance, then timing by ear is acceptable if done correctly.
As a side note, after advancing a healthy amt you may hear the starter motor working a bit harder or longer during cranking. Not really any consequences unless the system was already marginal; more of an FYI.
