Engine running ok but................

..maybe the picture of how it all looks like at tdc would help us to see whats going on?


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Nah, just a confusion of terms. When he says 3 is rocking, he doesn't mean loose, he means on the move i.e. not shut.

 

Is it advancing? Or is the advance stuck?

 

One cylinder at a time from no.1 and turn your pulley anti clockwise to do 2,3 then 4.
2 and 4 will always be at 180 from your timing marks and no.1 will always be on the line of your dizzy with the flat contact of your rotor arm on the mark of the outer lip of your dizzy.To check you are at tdc, a chop stick in your plug hole, your piston should be just a tap away. If you hold the chop stick in one hand snd gently rock the pulley by about 4mm each way, you will find your sweet spot, then do the valves. 180 anti-clockwise then do no.2 the same, etc.
That’s how they do VW’s in China.

 

Dudes, he knows how to set the valves!

It's the timing weirdness situation that's the problem.

 

If you connect a manifold vacuum to the distributor rather than the ported vacuum from the carburettor (beside the idle screw on a progressive) the distributor vacuum signal doesnt collapse properly towards WOT and also at throttle closed . So it over advances at idle.


But this shouldnt affect static timing unless the distributor advance mech itself has got sticky...

My timing light also broke in a way where the advance control changed the timing of the strobe about 5 degrees for the full 60 degrees adjustment of the knob. Resoldered a few dodgy looking joints and its back now.
So for a while my engine static timed at 7.5 and advanced to 60 degrees if I believed the knob on the #$$$$$#@ timing light...

Try a basic timing light or another one...

 

Paul knows how to set the valves - check.
He static timed it to 7.5 degs - can't go wrong with that? - check.
But it wouldn't start/ drive until he advanced it to 40 degs +

Apologies for repeating the basic situation but how could this be timing light?

Completely screwed up distributer? Could be.

 

Possibly, but the odd thing is we must assume the dizzy worked fine before the cam went flat, the cam going wouldn't damage the dizzy, would it? Could the dizzy have been damaged while the engine was in and out, Paul. And, didn't you borrow my spare dizzy at TE to try ruling out your dizzy?

 

Paul, thinking on this a bit more... is there anyway the cam could be out of position?

 

Have a heart, we're all skirting round that!
I don't think so, he sets to TDC, sets valves and if the cam were wrong wouldn't it then clatter to buggery?

 

Common as muck. I lent my spare to @iblaze to go on his holibobs recently as he had a similar problem. I'm sure he'll get a replacement eventually.

 

Can't help thinking that there might be more than one fault. I'd want to measure the vacuum signal and the exhaust CO as well as trying to work out what the advance curve is like with and without the vacuum connected.

 

What about the drive to dizzy from the cam? Is it possible to get these out of rotational alignment?

 

It does not matter, if you have No1 at TDC and tappets rocking on No1, just turn dizzy and / or move leads round the cap so they point to where the rotor says is number 1.

 

Gotcha! Mine points at the plug that's firing. Of course, there's no significance to that, other than it makes sense in my head.

 

Have you got another dizzy to try, Paul, as Sarah suggested, to rule out that as a source of the problem.

 

In theory i think it should aim towards the correct cylinder if all installed correctly. If not it will still work.

 

Is it like this since putting the engine back in? Reason for asking it’s very easy to trap the tinware when refitting the inlet manifolds
Ask me how I know . A vac leak at the manifold can cause it not to idle and over advancing the timing sort of compensates for this.

 

He is rather lovely, isn’t he ?

Glad it’s still going strong!