Re: Rotor alignment

Posted by Gerald on November 16, 1998 at 14:12:04:

In Reply to: Rotor alignment posted by Philip on November 16, 1998 at 12:27:06:

: My Ford 800 isn't running. When I set the basic timing, I found the rotor contact pointing toward spark plug hole #1, but on the rotor cap that position is shown as plug wire #4 in the FORD diagram. Question is, could the rotor really have been off 180 degrees and run? Could the commercial mechanic have set the ignition up relative to plug #4 rather than plug#1? Is there a misprint in the Ford Manual? Any thoughts?

So long as top dead center of the compression stroke of #1 cylinder corresponds to the rotor position of the distributor (and there's where the wire for #1 plug connects), it really doesn't matter much where the distributor cap is located. There's a preferred position that you get by lowering the distributor to mesh its gear with the camshaft gear. Since those are helical gears you have to rotate the distributor a bit to get it lined up when the gears mesh. The most reliable way of detecting the top of the compression stroke of cylinder #1 is with the rocker cover off so you can see that the valves are both closed. Then you can use a feeler or a light through the sparkplug hole to detect the top of the stroke and compare that to the timing mark on the flywheel or front pulley, which ever they engine uses, then drop in the distributor so its rotor is where you wish it. Then you have to move the distributor body to get the timing advanced to where it needs to be to run best. That's usually done at engine idle with a timing light.

Gerald

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