Hi Mike,
Sounds like progress.
The points gap, also measured as "dwell", has great influence on the
timing. .Try to get a dwell meter while they might still be available in
stores. They are obsolescent tools these days, but we need them for our
MGBs.
Someday soon try to get a drop of oil down the distributor shaft.
According to the book, you can do it by dripping oil between points plate
and the shaft. According to me, you can't do it that way without making
a mess and getting oil onto the points, so you have to remove the plate
(two screws) and drip the oil where it is needed. Also drip some down
the hollow of the shaft.
MG put the timing marker in two places--one on the timing cover where
it's easily seen; the other underneath where it's not easily seen but is
well protected against rust by all the road crud that forms with oil.
When you find the mark, you may discover that it's not all that useful
anyway, but do keep looking for it.
It's not always useful because the pulley you see has a rubber
vibration damper ring in it, and the old rubber may be allowing the
calibrated outer ring to move a bit relative to the inner part of the
pulley. Let's worry about that when you actually find the markers,
though.
Keep looking for the tang, or actually, it's more like teeth. Engine
turns clockwise as you look at it over the radiator, so the last tooth
the pulley notch gets to is TDC, having passed 15 BTDC, 10, 5, etc.
If you are absolutely certain it's not there, you will have to time by
ear. Advance the spark a bit, go driving up a hill about 2500 and listen
carefully. If you hear a ball-bearing type sound, it's "knock" and you
will want to retard the spark a bit. Do it, and try the hill again. If
you don't hear any on your first try, keep advancing and testing until
you do hear the knocking, then retard until you don't. Some knock is OK,
but you can do expensive damage if excessive, so don't go pushing it
until you have some experience with timing.
Your engine will be purring soon.
Bob
On Sat, 23 Jul 2005 18:29:21 -0400 Mike Torrusio <miket@maine.rr.com>
writes:
> Well, at 6 AM I couldn't take it anymore and e-mail suggestions in
> hand went to the car and checked the points.
> They looked pretty closed - in fact I couldn't get a .15 gauge
> through. So, I set the points to .15, and did nothing else (except
> grease the cam which probably hadn't seen grease in 30 years, and
> put a few drops of oil under the rotor.
> Started it up and boom it idled at 1500 rpm - about 500 more than
> it was.
> Took it on the road and I am still in shock. The engine has more
> pep, I can get the revs up over 4500 and, in the cool of the morning,
the >
> temp gauge only went to the hot side of N.>
> I can't believe that changing the gap that small amount made such
> a difference.
> Coming home, in the heat of the day, the temp gauge went up to
> within one, maybe one and a half needle widths of the H. Much better,
but
> still too hot.
> Where do you suggest I go from here?
> Oh, one other small thing. I looked at the front pulley on the
> engine and found the line for timing, but I just can't find the little
> timing adjustment tang that is supposed to be down there somewhere.
> Any suggestions as to where to look, or is it possible that
> someone took it off?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Mike T. 1971 MGB
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