Timing without a timing mark

My 1950 C Farmall does not have the "DC/1-4" timing mark on the flywheel. I cleaned it and inspected it thoroughly and can't find the mark. I want to time the battery ignition unit to the engine. Not sure if TDC of Piston #1 is the exact timing position. I have the head off. Is TDC when the #1 piston is all the way up (I was thinking TDC was when the piston was furthest from the crankshaft, so I was thinking that would mean all the way up and level with top of block)? If so, should I position the piston that way, install the battery ignition unit, and then do a spark test as indicated in the manual? Can I do the spark test with the head off? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Tony

Trust me, the mark is there. It's a line, none-too-energetically-stamped or scored from front to back.

But you can proceed as you describe with one added touch. TDC is indeed when the piston is at the top of its stroke. You'll want the piston as close to level at the top as you can get it.

Trick is that the piston goes there twice on each full cycle, at the top of both the compression and the exhaust strokes. To time the ignition, you need it at the top of the compression stroke. To determine that with the head off, put your second from the front push rod back in so that it rests on the cam. Turn the motor by hand a few times and watch its action. The second rod from the front acts on your intake valve. Watch for that rod to rise and go back down. The piston should be fairly near bottom when it does go back down. From that point, turning in the same direction (clockwise when facing the front of the motor) slowly bring the #1 piston up to the top. That's the point to set up your static timing.

If there's some reason for setting up the timing now, that's the way to do it. If you wait until you have the head back on and still can't find the timing mark, you can find top dead center by turning the motor until you feel the compression forcing air out the plug hole on #1. Bring the piston up until it appears near the top. (Don't put the wire I'm escribing in until it the piston is very near the top, and emember to take it back out -- you don't want it falling in there! If you can find a small screwdriver that will balance and do what I describe, use it if the handle is large enough not to fall in.) Then fashion a piece of stiff wire and insert it through the plug hole so that one end rests on top of the piston and enough of it sticking out for you to see clearly. Basically, you'll have a little see-saw with the edge of the plug hole as a fulcrum. Use the fan to rock the motor back and forth until the outer end of the wire is at its lowest point, meaning that the piston is at its highest point, which is TDC, and go from there.

TDC stands for Top Dead Center.

For a concise way to make a new mark, set up a dial indicator on the #1 piston and set the piston to something like 1/2 or 1/4 inch from the top. Do this both before and after TDC, marking the flywheel at both points. Split the difference and there ya go. When ya go to mark it, you will more than likely find the old mark lol.

Without a dial indicator, use a piece of 3/8"strap metal with a two holes (one big enough to accept a head bolt, the other one 1/4 inch or so.) Bolt this over the #2 cylinder to hang in the hole. Put a bolt and nut in the second hole to act as a piston stop. Rotate the engine by hand until it stops on the bolt. Mark the F/W (I would also make a front pulley pointer and mark as it is far more convienient)
Then rotate the opposite way to the bolt stop, and mark the pulley and F/W. Split the difference with a good effort at measuring. (a dressmakers tape is nice) and erase the previous marks. Use a sharp chisel to index the TDC. It does not matter at this point where the valves are, But it will when using the marks. JimN

To add to what the others have said, if you have the head off you have the pan off. You can get pretty close to TDC by looking at the rod from below and turning the crank until it is vertical. Two pistons will be down and two will be up and the rods only line up at TDC for two and BDC for the other two. Since TDC and BDC crank throws are going in opposite directions you can tell when they get close to matching.

The mark is there. I have a 50 C with the mark and no letters -- they could have discontinued the letters. If you put #1 on exact TDC you can find it by cleaning that area. Yes it can be timed without the mark. Get it on the compression stroke, shine a light in the cylinder, and you can see the piston reach the top. Turn the distributer to the left viewed from the rear, pull the coil wire out of dist cap, and hold it next to the nut on the distributer, turn to the right until you get a spark (switch must be on). Timing wil be exactly TDC.

Welcome back Tony! Looking forward to updates of the C on your website!

Dad and I looked and looked and looked. Scraped and looked. Scrubbed and looked. Wiped and looked. Turned the engine over dozens of times and looked. Started the engine and flashed the timing light up in the hole and looked....

We could NOT find the timing mark either. It is simply not there. The flywheel is smooth as a baby's butt all the way around.

In this case you just have to get it close enough to start, then time it by ear once it's running... You can get it close enough to start without having to tear the engine down, though.

Matt, are you talking flywheel or front crank pulley? It just hit me that the words were not right.

From what I've seen IH mostly put marks on the front pulley for small tractors. Bigger crawlers have them only on the flywheel.

The 113/123s in the A/B/C series only had a mark on the flywheel, which ligned with a mark on the flyweel cover on the lower half of the front of the torque tube, and visible only through the hand hole in the bottom of the tube.

Thanks Mike. For some reason, I didn't get an e-mail notification for replies to my post. I coulda swore I selected "e-mail notification". I couldn't figure out why the heck I wasn't getting any responses, because I have never posted on here without a response. Alas, I checked this evening and there's all kinds of helpful advice!

I am within about two weeks of starting the C. I will post photo updates when all is done, and copy the folks here on the forum. I'll probably honk some people off, though, as I decided to do a custom paint job on it. I figure as long as I didn't customize the parts, when I die and someone wants to paint it back to original they still can. It would have gone to scrap if I hadn't saved it. Mechanically, it is now a new tractor.

How's your tractor projects coming?

LOL! Yep, that pretty much explains the ordeal I went through to try to find it. Glad somebody else had that experience and I am not loosing my eyesight. I would give somebody $20.00 if they could find that mark on my flywheel, just for the fun of it!

Thank you for the help!

Thank you for the help!

Thanks!

That is very helpful. Thank you!

(quoted from post at 15:50:42 09/02/09) Matt, are you talking flywheel or front crank pulley?

Click to expand...

For some forsken reason, the Super C is supposed to have the timing mark on the flywheel. We could not find it.

(quoted from post at 05:35:13 09/03/09)

(quoted from post at 15:50:42 09/02/09) Matt, are you talking flywheel or front crank pulley?

Click to expand...

For some forsken reason, the Super C is supposed to have the timing mark on the flywheel. We could not find it.

Click to expand...

Weird eh? Maybe a replacement that didn't get stamped? I haven't looked at those details on our Super C yet. So far haven't had to a complete "time it from scratch" for it but I usually don't look at those anyways. Usually just eyeball it close enough to make it start and then hear it to within a couple of degrees anyways. My MD and 9s have the pulley marks and that was what I was thinking about when saying "small". I gotta watch it there eh!