Can anyone help? I'm tearing, what little is left of my hair, out at the moment. When adjusting my ignition timing by moving the distributor I am unable to line the crankshaft casing mark with the center 16degree timing mark on the pully. The distributor is rotated as far as it wil go towards the firewall. Its still a few degrees off. I have checked the cam belt timing a number of times now looking in case the belt has slipped by a tooth but it looks spot on. I have even tried adjusting cams back one tooth but the car would not start. Currently with the distributor as far towards the firewall as it will go, the car will idle fine but when driving the car has little power. It gets noticeably worse when the car is warm. Is there anything else that could cause the ignition timing to be so far out? Any sensor that could cause the ECU to advance \ retard the timing? Any help is appreciated. Graeme.
----------------------------------- What YEAR is the vehicle, and did you put the JUMPER on while setting the timing? 'Curly'
Could be.. The only other thing I could think of is maybe a sheared dist gear pin, or something like that. But being I haven't looked at the base of one of those distributors, I couldn't say if they use one. I had this happen on my ford truck one time though. The pin sheared off at the base, and the dist would "wander" and gradually shift in direction until it got to the point that I ran out of room to turn it. Yanked it out, and saw the gone pin. They had those at the autoparts, and I was back off to the races. Seems to me, if the timing marks look perfectly spot on, it should be pretty close, but I've seen weirder things happen.. MK
highly unlikely - it has no load. only way something like that can happen is if the retainer ring somehow disappears... check the belt timing. you have all the classic symptoms.
Its actually got a brand new distributor on it. The car had a misfire so I ordered an ignition module and a coil but got sent a whole distributor. Result! Missfire was solved, but the timing issue is the same with both dizzys. I too was convinced all the symptoms pointed towards the timing belt, but I have checked it numerous times. Everything seems to line up the arrows on the cams point upwards, the center lines line up, and the TDC mark ( white on by itself) lines up with the mark on the plastic casing. I'm no professional, so I'm going to have take it to a garage to have them check the cambelt. I was expecting something not to line up. At least by a few degrees.
OK, like I say, I haven't looked at one. "honda" Just wanted to mention it in case it did have some type of lock, pin, or whatever for a gear or drive.. MK
wrote in The distributor drive shaft keys to the camshaft with a slotted arrangement that looks a bit like a large flat-blade screwdriver. It would take quite an event to shear that. The slot and key are offset from the axial center, so the distributor can only go on one way. The timing belt, however, can very easily be off by one tooth.
When you checked the cam belt timing, did you use the timing marks on the flywheel? (you mentioned a plastic cover with white mark). I would check to see if the vacuum advance in the distributor is binding, or stuck, or out of adjustment.
if it spans both distributors, the only thing it can be is the belt. get the helm manual and check it in reference to that. if the belt is slack, it's easy for the pulleys to "look about right" but they're not. it's set relative the head, not vertical. the head's slightly sloped. you can do it yourself if you have the correct info! knowledge is the key.
