Distributor Timing
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Which way do you turn the distributor on a 38 Terraplane to advance the timing?
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A sure way to determine this on any car is to pop the cap off and see which way the rotor turns. Turn the distributor in the opposite direction to advance the timing.0
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Ok, what would cause the timing to seem to suddenly be off on the car. It seems that the car will now only start and run with the timing appearing to be very very advanced.0
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Doesnt have a chain. Fiber cam gear can be slipped on the gear hub.0
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The car ran fine on sunday, had to retime it to get it to start today. Put the timing light back on it and found that the pointer was well past the advance mark on the flywheel. Seems to me that the engine wouldn't run if there was something wrong with the Fiber gear.0
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Billy K. may be onto something. It is possible for the metal hub of the fiber timing gear, to break away from the gear. While this is not a common occurrence it is not unknown. A fellow in our chapter had it happen to his '47 some years ago (same basic engine as the '38). When it happens, the hub will sometimes align with the outer (fiber portion) of the gear, and at other times will rotate out of alignment. So sometimes the car will be in time, other times not. I can't recall if there is enough clearance for you to remove the timing gear cover without taking out the radiator (which would also mean removal of the hood and sheet metal radiator shell). If you can get it off, you can quickly determine whether the timing gear's okay or not.0
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But how would it be possible for the engine to run if the crank and the cam were so far out of aligment to cause the timing marks to be off.0
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Because they dont' get that far out of alignment. (Believe me, this happened! I was as amazed as you!). It runs roughly, of course. Then --click! -- it runs smoothly again, as the fiber gear shifts on the metal cam.0
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but it seems that the lower timing mark on the flywheel is now out of the small timing window it is so far "advanced" according to the marks. I would think that this would be on the order of 10-15 degrees advanced past the advanced mark. Seems that the engine shouldnt run that far advanced.0
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I don't claim to be an authority and there certainly could be another explanation. This is only one suggestion!0
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Thanks. I also cant explain why turned the distributor in the retard direction appears to have increased the advance according to the timing light.
I hate to think its the timing gear, seems like a huge pain to fix.0 -
Yah, sort of. If you want to talk about it more, meet me at the Hudson chatroom at http://www.classiccar.com/hudson_chats.htm . type in any old user name, and invent a password.0
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On my 36 Terra the camshaft backthrust washer wore away allowing the fibre timing gear to move back and rub on 2 bolt heads polishing them nicely. This caused the steel hub to seperate partialy from the fibre part of the gear. This sounds like your problem. Wouldnt do any harm to pull out the distrib & check/clean it, to eliminate that as the cause.0
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Ok, do this the easy way, bring the engine to top dead center on number one, look in plug hole to make sure you are there. Look at flywheel and see where mark is. These items are independant of distributor or camshaft. If they are correct, look to see where distributor rotor is pointing, if it is not top dead center, move it to TDC. If the disributor body is now in some whacky location, the relationship between the cam and crank or (I don't know what turns the distributor on this model) the relationship between the gear that turns the distributor and what turns it (probably camshaft) must be whacky. I am betting the gear relationship between camshaft and distributor has gone bad.0
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The distributor was pulled, cleaned, and lubed. Didn't appear to be anything wrong. No excessive slop in the shaft, bottom gear was fine.
There is no way that the flywheel has moved independently of the pistons, so the piston TDC lines up with the mark on the flywheel. And the only way for the distributor to be out of relation with the camshaft is to have the timing gear go bad. Since the distributor was removed and reset to TDC a week ago and the car ran. Now 5 days later the car wouldnt start and the timing had to be adjusted. The distributor was turned in the retard direction however while using the timing light it appears to have advanced.0 -
I'm not that mechanically-minded, but doesn't the '38 distributor have a centrifugal governor inside it? (No vacuum advance, right?) Is it possible that the governor has gotten screwed up? Also, I am assuming the distributor body itself is firmly clamped in place and can't rotate by vibration. Also that the advance control arm (the plate clamped to the neck of the body itself) is tightly clamped to the distributor.0
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Yes, it only has the centrifugal advance, and it appears to work correctly. With increasing engine speed the advance increases, as it should. The distributor and the hold down ring are both tight.0
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Matt,
I just sent you a e-mail with the pages from the mechanical procedures manual regarding your distributor. Hope it helps.
Gregg0
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