Hey Guys,
I've been struggling to get my '72 Capri to run after a rebuild. It's a ford 2.6 V6 German engine. The "Cologne" engine if anyone is familiar with it. This morning I put fresh plugs in it and cranked up the idle adjust screw to get it to run on it's own.
So finally I could get a timing light on it, and I found something weird. When I shot the light at it, it said it was right at TDC. So I tried to adjust it BTDC and it died. Hum. So I put it back where it was and restarted it. Now, if I adjust it ATDC it runs better! So something is out of whack. Clearly I did something wrong. Any idea what? Is the distributor off a tooth maybe? I've messed with that a lot and I thought I had it. But it could be wrong.
Thanks,
Ed
1st: you need to be sure the damper timing mark is truly TDC #1.
Good luck.
DavidinDurango wrote:
1st: you need to be sure the damper timing mark is truly TDC #1.
Good luck.
Well, I guess you're right. But it is a factory part and can only go on one way. It's keyed to the crank shaft.
Unless the outer ring of the damper slipped. Or you're on the wrong cylinder. Or somebody changed something in the last 38 years.
TJ
SuperDork
9/26/10 4:04 p.m.
Are you certain the plug wires are wired correctly? I'd start with manually putting the engine to TDC on #1 cylinder and then looking at the timing mark on the pulley. Then I'd make sure I've got the plug wires in the right places.
I just put a bit of vacuum hose in the #1 spark plug hole- the marks seem to be right. There's no damper on this engine, believe it or not. Just a pulley.
I'm definitely on the right cylinder. The wires are right. I actually had two swapped before, but I've checked it 100 times now. They're right.
I'm tired of messing with it and pretty darn frustrated. I'm calling it for the day. I have no idea what's going on.
Thanks for the help!
The best way to find TDC involves taking an old spark plug, breaking the porcelain out, threading it, and sticking a long bolt in it. Then put it in the hole, rotate (by hand!!) until it stops, mark pulley, rotate the other way until it stops, mark pulley, remove stopper spark plug.
Exactly halfway in between is exactly TDC. (Does not apply to rotary engines.)
I was going to ask "you SURE you're on #1, because Fords have #1 on the right side of the engine and not the left like practically everyone else, and if you were trying to read cylinder #4 by mistake then you'd get a massive over-advance issue" but then I realized that you'd checked for TDC in #1, and really, if you found TDC at ANY cylinder, as long as you had the timing light on that cylinder, it should will work just fine.
BUT - It is still possible the crank pulley slipped just enough that the TDC mark is very near the wrong cylinder...
DavidinDurango wrote:
1st: you need to be sure the damper timing mark is truly TDC #1.
Good luck.
Uhhhh. You were right.
I explained this in another thread, but wanted to thank you for the input. Damn thing was in the wrong place. Grrr. Sure hope this does it.
Thanks,
Ed
Crap. I think I got excited too soon. I cleaned up the other pulley and found a mark under the crud. Looking at it now, this is almost certainly the actual timing mark. And it's in exactly the same place as the other pulley.
Are you sure which direction the distributor turns? Weren't the early ones gear driven cam and the later ones chain? So there's a potential for 2 different directions for the cam to spin, and the distributor as well.