If the piston is at tdc, on no 1 cyl, on the compression stroke,,, the timing mark will be there if the balancer is good... if it is not, then the ring has slipped or he is not actually on no 1 plug wire, or the wires are out of the firing order at the cap... A ENGINE THAT IS 180 OUT ON THE BASIC TIMING WILL NOT RUN,, HALF OF THE CYLS. WILL FIRE BACK THRU THE INTAKE AND HALF WILL FIRE OUT THE EXHAUST PIPES...that is absolute... never changes.... if the engine runs but not right then there is enough cyls that are right to make that happen but the firing order is off on one or more cyls...retrace the firing order at the cap and wires.... and make sure that you are actually on no 1 cyl.... no 1 is always on the bank that is closest to the front of the car....on any engine....
No 1 cyl: standing at the radiator, it is on the right side of the engine, closest spark plug to you. TDC: With spark plug removed and intake valve (not exhaust!) closing, you will be able to touch the piston with a screwdriver placed through the spark plug hole. If you use a wrench on the crank bolt to rock the crank back and forth slightly, you can "feel" the piston rise and fall to get TDC on #1 very close to actual TDC. If your balancer really is 180 degrees out after doing this, then- Your problem has nothing at all to do with the valve train- this is a crank/ balancer relationship problem. You are either: 1) checking TDC on #1 improperly 2) the crank or balancer have multiple keyways slots and it's on the wrong one (never heard of this) 3) the balancer ring has slipped 4) you have the wrong balancer (doubtful) 5) the balancer key is either broken or missing from the keyway, and the balancer has rotated on the crankshaft If it's #5, then if you break the crank bolt loose, you might be able to rotate the balancer left/right without moving the crank to confirm. If the key is in there but broken, then maybe it won't move left/right. Good luck.
Are you using a dial back timing light? If so maybe you just didnt dial it back to zero? Just a random thought.
Make a piston stop by taking an old spark plug and breaking off the ceramic and knocking out the guts. Get a bolt(3/8 x 3" or 4") and stick it in the hollowed out plugfrom the top so it sticks down maybe 1.5-2". JB weld the top of the bolt. When it's ready-screw the piston stop into #1 cyl and rotate your engine clockwise using the bolt in the center of the balancer-when the cyl hits the stop(ie you can't rotate) put a piece of tape on the balancer. Then rotate counter clockwise until it stops again-mark it with tape. The spot in the middle of the two pieces of tape will be TDC on your balancer. If it is differennt from the scored mark on the balancer then that may be the prob.
With the piston stop-make sure you take the measurements on the compression stroke. LarryGS helped me with a similar prob(listen to his advice-it always seems to be on the $$) and it turned out that the new(actually used) balancer that I had to replcae my old one with was off enough to screw up anything related to settin the timing. The new mark was dead on.
wonder if he got a 4 7 swap cam by accident. or cam degreed wrong. time it by vacuum not light and if you have hard start hot problems retard it slowly till it is right
Correct- you are wrong. I don't think anyone answered your question about the piston- the piston goes up and down TWICE (2 revolutions) for every one time that the spark plug fires. The whole 4 cycle process takes 2 revolutions of the crankshaft. So #1 will only fire every other time it comes up to TDC! And every time #1 piston is at TDC, the timing mark on the balancer will point at "0".
Bahhhh. I was on the wrong plug. Took it again about an hour ago and it was where it was supposed to be. Not running on enough sleep I guess! Thanks to all of you for your patience.ou: Now back to my other thread...I still have a miss...I will post what I have done and what I FOUND!
My timing mark is at 180* off when the engine is running and the timing light is pointed at it. I moved the timing mark to zero after I had TDC, when you get there you are really close anyway, I just cranked the balancer till it lined up. Am I not supposed to do that?[/QUOTE] After rotating the crankshaft so that #1 piston is on TDC (I like Davids method using a screw driver, nice and simple) on the compression stroke you do NOT rotate the crank any more. At this point the timing mark on the balancer should line up with the 0* mark of the pointer. Now install the distributer so that the rotor points to the #1 tower on the cap. BTW just to clarify; #1 cyl is on the front drivers side, #2 is front passenger side. If this is what you have done it maybe possible that you installed the wires on the cap 90* out which would cause the timing mark to be out 180*. The #1 tower is the first tower clockwise after the adjusting window.
i just got done replacing my balancer because it slipped i could just reach down and turn it by hand, i first noticed because the timing mark was far off,, but there was also a ton of vibration when i got to certain rpms
