1980's Ford 2.3L? Timing help.

[Rgrove03]

Hello all,

I recently purchased a Baja Bug with a 2.3L ford engine. Being the non-experianced and mechanically declined person I thought I was'nt I need help. I pulled the valve cover and pan off. Verified it has .030 over forged pistons and H-beam stroker rods. I replaced all the gaskets and such. I then decided I needed to replace the old looking timing belt. Needless to say my 4 year old decided to turn the distributor pulling around and around while I was opening the new belt. The crank and cam pulleys are in the same position as when I took the belt off. The motor being an essinger offroad edition has no timing mark or timing cover for that matter. It does have an underdriving pulley and adjustable cam pulley on it. Any help would be appreciated. Is there a was to line up the other pully and just put the belt on and go? help!


P.S. I'm assuming my oil pump pully drives the distrubutor?

 

[ricardo93]

Take the dis cap off and turn it so its at no. 1's spark plug

 

[Rgrove03]

hmm

How do I know if the crank and cam are in the right position to ensure the rotor should be pointing to the number one? This engine has not timing marks on it so I don't know where the crank or cam should be positioned???

Rich.

 

[bowtieboy77]

I'm alittle confused how if the distributor is still in the engine how your 4yr old was able to turn the rotor? Unless you had the dist hold down off and he lifted and turned rotor. Any way If changing dist or timing belt on a engine your not familar with always bar engine to #1 tdc comp stroke then observe timing marks and rotor location. So you claim there is no inner timing shroud? My 2.3 is on engine stand right now fully rebuilt I have a inner plastic shroud with a cam pully index and the crank index is on the timing cover. I am not going to pull my pulleys off but If I remember the crank keyway points straight up on #1 tdc and the line on crank pulley is 2 oclock position. The cam pully dot is lined up at the 5 oclock position line them up this way and see if you see any scribe marks the po might have made to align the timing. As far as distributor rotor location if crank and cam are in proper spots the rotor should be pointing at front left contact when standing at back of engine looking forward. The firing order is 1342. Unfortunatly thats about all the info I can supply you with out tearing my pullys off.

To answer your last question you distributer drives the oil pump not the other way around. Make sure you have timing right before you start or you could send your valves in to your very expensive piston they are a close tolerance engine. Not as close tolerance as some but enough damage can occur.

 

[ricardo93]

The dis is about the easiest part to set the timing on... just take a marker from where the plug wire plugs onto the dis cap and draw down until you hit the metal of the dis and then spin the pulley... for tdc undo the #1 spark plug and rotate the crank until its at tdc and the cam i have no idea because its adjustable

 

[Mikel89us]

There should be a timing mark on the crank pulley. If there is not, pull the crank pulley off. There will be a dot, triangle, or star on it. Line that up with the mark (shallow groove) on the top right of the front seal housing. This will get the crank to TDC.

The cam is easy even without timing mark. Take a piece of string and tape it to the middle of the auxiliary shaft bolt. Hold the string to the center of the cam bolt and rotate the cam until the timing mark lines up with the string. This puts the came at tdc for cyl 1. If the cam it far off from the mark, rotate the crank 45* so you don't hit the pistons with the valves. Set it back to tdc when done.

The distributor Is easy, point the advancing unit at a 45* angle towards the back right of the motor (when looking at the front of the motor.). Then put the cap on, and figure out what pin is cyl #1. Pull the cap back off, and point the rotor to that pin.

If you need anything gone into more detail, let me know. I might make a video of this sometime, its a common enough question.

 

[bowtieboy77]

Great advice with the string trick mikel89us I have heard that method described before but not in that detail. The way you described it was alot easier to understand. I'm going to try it next time I'm in the garage just out of curiousity.

 

[Mikel89us]

I have verified it using timing marks before. Its as accurate as you will get using the marks.

 

[Rgrove03]

Still no nill.... ugh!




Alright... Going to try something else... I'm not sure what year this motor is but I have tried everything... So this is what I was sold. A 2.3L bored to a 2.5. I verified it has H beam rods and is punched .30 over with forged pistons and a cam. I got it to puff at me today and it is running 110 octane fuel... I pulled off the crank pulley and placed the keyway at 12:00 oclock, I also did the string trick which is about 4 to 4:30 on the cam pulley, I also made sure the distributor was pointing to the number one plug... This engine has an essinger cam pulley as well as an essinger crank pulley. I ensured I was at top dead center on the crank and verified the number one cylinders valves where closed (TDC). I moved the distributor around until I broke the vacuum advance ugh. I'm going to run a compression test tomorrow to see where it stands.... Any ideas?

 

[Mikel89us]

Are you sure you are getting proper fuel?? You might try adjusting the idle screw. When it spit at you, was it rotated all the way one direction? If so you might have to rotate the rotor to go a little further that way (pulling the distributor out). If it sputtered it should run.


Also, you cannot bore these out to a 2.5. They have to have the crank changed, you would have to measure the crank throw. Its nothing visual.

 

[Road Angels]

belt

Be sure to set that adjustable cam wheel to its zero mark before you do the belt, also note where it is adjusted to before you set back to zero, did it run before you played with the belt?, also check the shear pin on the distirbutor gear, have seen a few of those go,

 

[Mikel89us]

also check the shear pin on the distirbutor gear, have seen a few of those go,

Good call I forgot about that, its been a long time since I've seen one of those fail, but when they do fail its usually because a bearing went out in the distributor or metal went through the oil pump. So if it is that shear pin, make sure to figure out what caused it.

 

[Rgrove03]

It's alive!!!

Hello all,

It's alive! Thanks to everyone who helped me. There were a few things causing this.

1. The buggy came with 10 gallons of 110 octane that smelled like turpintine.
2. One tooth made all the difference
I used the string method and was going two teeth at a time. I decided to do one tooth at a time and bam it started. Compression is 145 PSI in all cylinders. Runs good... Can't wait to see how much power it has in the woods.

Thanks again all!