Electronic Ignition swapped for points

Time at maximum advance. Find where the rotor points at TDC for cylinder number one. Look at the valves to know it’s ready to fire. Where the rotor points is #1. Arrange your plug wires accordingly. The notch is often unreliable for a number of reasons as is the book timing spec at idle. The hissing and gurgling sounds like boiling fuel.

 

I've marked the pulley for valve setting during the build, but the timing mark it came with on the pulley can just about be seen in the red circle..that's the one you need ... this one is realive to the bolt on scale.. I've put a dab of white paint on the front of it now for the strobe.

If you dont have a tach the max advance tops out as the revs increase so just make sure it doesnt go past the 28-30 advised above

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https://www.ratwell.com/technical/FindTimingMark.html

This is a useful guide for finding the timing mark on a type 4

 

I think you guys are too far ahead with max timing. There's something far more basic going wrong here.

Ignore the white paint on deefer's photo, these marks are for setting timing in a car through the hole with the big plastic bung and irrelevant for you. The one in the red circle is what you're looking for. Personally I manage fine without paint on the mark but if it helps...just don't add more marks, use that one and your scale.

 

No rpm. However you don’t need to be at exactly 3000 rpm. It’s just a matter of reving it up to around there to make sure you have no more than 30 degrees maximum advance

 

You must have eyes like an outhouse rodent!.. I can barely make out the dent with glasses on in the murky depths!

And yes ignore the other marks.. the red circle one is what you're after and should be at 0 at TDC..

I had no marks on the scale either they'd wiped off the metal so I needed as many marks as possible to help transfer it over



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No rpm display but you don't really need it.
Just get the engine running any way you can, then rev hard and adjust the timing so that it's around 28deg BTDC with the vacuum disconnected. That's all there is to it. You need to first be sure that the TDC mark is correct of course, then dial in 28deg to the strobe.

 

Ok, found the timing mark for sure. Someone’s painted it blue. I’ll scratch it to make it a little sharper, less wide.

You can see it is marked heavily white on the other side of the fan belt, so pretty sure these are the big fat marks that I timed last night at 8 degrees after, yep, after.

I’ll warm her up, and adjust dizzy until this notch lines up with 8 degrees before TDC, so the 8 on the left hand side of the plastic scale

 

If you have a plastic scale there’s a dot on it showing the correct mark , I think it’s 7 before off hand

 

Correct. One wonders if your chap has a clue. There are some VW specialists who 999 times out of 1,0000 have worked on Beetles and Splitties. They struggle with type-4 because to them the timing procedure is back to front.
T1 the timing scale is marked on the pulley to line up with a static point on the case.
Type-4 is a static point on the pulley lined up with a scale on the case.
If the previous 100 you did were beetles, it's worse than coming at it blind. Maybe.

Is your distributor clamp tight to stop it rotating? The long hex one.

 

Yep, I noticed in Bentley other engines are timed after TDC.

That bolt is tight, so dizzy not swinging about

 

This ha also far been a really helpfully thread it's made me buy a timing light to check mine.

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As per pic, I have no stamp mark at 7.5 BTDC. Easy enough to read though

 

Yep, measured again with notch- for sure it’s 8 After TDC

 

Unlucky .. some have a round dot at about 7.5 as Davidoft says and a square block at 28 to 30 for the two important areas on type 4's

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There is that for dual vacuum distributors, but he'd be nuts to deliberately time to that - 5°ATDC.
I think he's totally cocking it up personally, he does it equally and differently wrong every time.
This doesn't mean he didn't do a great job of your top end rebuild but it doesn't inspire confidence does it?
If I were you I'd learn the lesson that I keep having to learn which is DIY. I can perfectly well cock it up myself so paying someone else to cock it up is pointless. I've only had two engines built for me. The first I had to rebuild after less than 5,000 miles saving only the case and crank. I'm in the process of rebuilding the top end on the second that only lasted 10-15,000 miles because the compression ratio was too high and heads too weak after excessive machining.
It is a PITA, but the only way to truly know what's going on is DIY, in most cases you won't do worse than a pro and in many you'll do better as you're not trying to get the job done, make a profit and all that entails.

 

I've an unknown condition 1600 for the baja that I'm going to give a bash of rebuilding. It came with the project and owes me £0 so I've nothing to loose really. Tempted to run the 1200 that it also came with (which will be dog slow I know) and rebuild the 1600 at a later date.

 

VICTORY

 

Thanks for all your help here!!!

Shifted it to genuine 8BTDC.

It idles

It’s cool

It doesn’t hesitate

Blinking marvellous