Problem with timing

Noaki · Post by **Noaki** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 7:21 pm

I've been sitting out in my garage on this sunny Texas day for about an hour and a half with a timing light and alot of frustration. I pulled the distributor to check all it's parts, and they all seemed fine. The one thing I wondered about was a small groove on the bottom of the magnet, but it was perfectly straight and uniform. If that's off then I'll happily run down and pick up a new pick-up assembly... and hopefully solve some of my problems.

My main problem right now is that I can't get it timed at all. I'll get the marking under the light and get everything lined up, then the mark will suddely vanish... I'm assuming that something is skipping or somesuch. After a while of fiddling with it I'll find the mark again, but it only stays for about 10 minutes tops. Even locking it down and just watching the mark to see if the engine was vibrating enough to shake the cap too much had the same problem.

Any help would be greatly appriciated, I'll work on the brakes to give myself a break from crouching down with my head under the hood and shcking myself every few minutes (which seems wrong aswell, since it's shocking me through rubber gloves).

HOLLYWOODSPIDER · Post by **HOLLYWOODSPIDER** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 11:22 pm

What model do you have? If it is a late '70s model, it could be the dual points setup like I've got. It uses one set of points for when the engine's cold (with an additional 10 degrees advance to ease starting), then switches to the other points when it's warmed up. There is a "start relay" on the relay panel that switches back and forth between the 2 sets. My mechanic has been urging me to update to the electronic ignition from '79 on.

Could also be a bad plug wire grounding out, ot a cap and rotor situation.

Noaki · Post by **Noaki** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 12:46 am

Sorry for forgetting such an obvious detail. It's a 1982 Spider 2000.

By the way, the nuts/pins that hold the brake rotor on... where's a good place to get those? One of mine stripped rather badly and I need to get a replacement after I manage to find a way to get it out.

Spyderbuddy · Post by **Spyderbuddy** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 8:16 am

mine is a fuel injected car also and i do not have a timing light but if you do it this way be sure to take all the clamps off the air hose i just line up the marks on the hub (crankshaft) make sure that it is number #1 firing and not #4 and drop the disturbuter in pointed at #1 on the cap and fire it up if it back fires (not good for the fuel injection stuff) turn rotor 180 degrees this works most of the time. then just tune to ear till you can get a timing light mine runs fine and i've not a timing light on it yet

racydave · Post by **racydave** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 10:34 am

You shouldnt be getting shocked, is it a inductive pickup lamp?(no piercing wires or boots) I like the ones w dial, you can dial mark to 0% and look at dial for degrees. A bad wire can cause probs. Ck coil wire also. Hope your rotor is secure, can trash your day.

Noaki · Post by **Noaki** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 1:08 pm

I was getting shocked through the distributor. I've had my coil checked out already, the resistance on the coils is actually high. The control module tested bad once, then good nine times. I'd like to just replace the whole system, but I can't afford that right now. I'm going to work on it more later today, if nothing else I need to try and get it close so I can use it to go get parts to fix it... catch 22

So Cal Mark · Post by **So Cal Mark** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 1:16 pm

sounds like you have a couple of issues here;
first, the magnet under the pickup should have a groove, and it should be on the bottom side, away from the pickup.
second, you may have a bad spark plug wire, and that's why you can't see the timing mark. The dist cap isn't what determines the timing, it's the location of the pickup and reluctor.
To set the base timing, turn the engine by hand until the crank and cam timing marks are all lined up. Remove the dist cap and turn the dist until the reluctor tooth and the pickup tooth are in line. (good time to check the clearance between the two, about .016). Make sure the rotor is pointing to #4. That will fire at tdc and at least give you a spot where the engine will start.
You mention the engine is shaking, if it is running rough, determine which cyl isn't firing by removing the plug wires from the cap one at a time, using insulated pliers. When you remove one and it doesn't change the way the engine runs, you've isolated the misfire. Then you'll need to figure out why the misfire; fouled plug, bad wire, vacuum leak, bad injector, etc

Spyderbuddy · Post by **Spyderbuddy** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 3:01 pm

i knew these things were timed out at #4 why is that

So Cal Mark · Post by **So Cal Mark** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 4:13 pm

you can set ign timing off either 1 or 4, but when you line up all of the sprocket timing marks, #4 is firing

Spyderbuddy · Post by **Spyderbuddy** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 6:45 pm

that's what i tried to tell a guy once before but he said i didn't know what i was talking about because he was using a service manual. i believe that when they (fiat) moved the dist from the side of the block to the cam exhaust cam tower that they had to fire off #4 (180 degrees out) i found this out the hard way because i set the car up for # 1 and it does not run so rotate rotor 180 and the car runs

So Cal Mark · Post by **So Cal Mark** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 11:05 pm

this is basic 4 stroke technology. both 1 and 4 are at the top at the same time. One is on exhaust stroke while the other is on power stroke; Fiat chose to have #4 on power stroke when the cam sprockets are lined up. When either 1 or 4 fire, the other piston is also at the top, so ign timing can be set on either cylinder

Noaki · Post by **Noaki** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 5:41 pm

So Cal Mark wrote:To set the base timing, turn the engine by hand until the crank and cam timing marks are all lined up. Remove the dist cap and turn the dist until the reluctor tooth and the pickup tooth are in line. (good time to check the clearance between the two, about .016). Make sure the rotor is pointing to #4. That will fire at tdc and at least give you a spot where the engine will start.

I got the feeler gauges today, lined everything up, and stuck it in there... to find that the gap is closer to .036 to .040. What kind of problems might that cause, and what do I need to adjust or replace to fix it?

racydave · Post by **racydave** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:33 pm

set points first, set timing second.

So Cal Mark · Post by **So Cal Mark** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:57 pm

the pickup hold-down screws can be loosened to adjust the gap, but the important thing with the electronic unit is to make sure there's a gap, otherwise you'll chip the teeth on the reluctor. If the gap is too large you won't get spark

Noaki · Post by **Noaki** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 3:32 pm

I was back at it today trying to get this thing figured out. I seem to have a number of additional problems that happened while I was working on the brakes now.

The one that worries me most right now is when we were trying to crank it, after letting go of the key we'd get a pop and some smoke from time to time. I'm also getting some hissing aswell. I figure I got a bad air hose somewhere, I'll be spending time looking for that later.

But back to the distributor. I've seen several places that I should be able to look down and see the vacuum advance working, but I don't know what I'm looking for. When I got the timing mark liked up this time, it disappeared again. I thought that the #1 wire might be the problem, so I tried to switch my light over to the #4 wire. The mark was back for a while then vanished again. When I looked back at the distributor I noticed that I had attached the light to the #2 wire, not the #4. From what I understand (or think I do) that would mean that it was 90 degrees out of line, or I'm doing something pretty wrong. This is my first time to really spend alot of time under the hood of a car, so I can't assume that it's not me.