Thread: I am stumped??

Tweet

Is there any other way to turn an engine by hand?

Remove the flywheel cover and you can turn the flywheel

I could not time my 454 with my sears advance type tmining lite bought another one and got the same results with a reading that was showing some 55* at idle and vacuum adv off. turned out the damper had slipped on the rubber mount and had to change out the damper puilly. Checked it with a home made tool to find true tdc on compression. ed ke6bnl

Originally posted by Ed ke6bnl
I could not time my 454 with my sears advance type tmining lite bought another one and got the same results with a reading that was showing some 55* at idle and vacuum adv off. turned out the damper had slipped on the rubber mount and had to change out the damper puilly. Checked it with a home made tool to find true tdc on compression. ed ke6bnl

Thanks ed,
thats the general direction I'm heading in. Noticed the water pump weeping a little so I'm gonna go ahead and replace it and get things out of the way to get to the balencer and pulley.

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who replied to this thread to help me along, you guys are great.


I followed the advise from y'all and set the timing marks today.

I could actually turn the engine with my hands after pulling 4 of the plugs so that worked out good.


Turns out that after marking the HB in the two places and then taking a caliper and measuring the space (0.7520) and dividing by 2 (0.3760), I ran the caliper back to .3760 and placing my mark, the original mark WAS off almost 1 1\2 inches! Thats a bunch of degrees. No wonder I was having trouble timing this thing. Then I made sure that the rotor was close to firing #1 at about 4deg. BTDC and cranked it and check the timing and now I can actually set it a 12deg BTDC and run it with no problems. Also got the new pump on and reduced the amount of antifreeze and running more water and it is running cooler, about 8 degrees. This was quite a hurdle for me and I got discouraged at times but you guys stuck with me and helped me to the end so hats off to the CHR members!

I'm VERY pleased with you. clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap (that's applause). And you should be very pleased with yourself now that you know how to do this. You'll be able to amaze others with your knowledge from now on.

Now, let's carry this one step further to find out how many degrees it was off. Let's assume it's a 6" diameter damper ring. To find the circumference of the damper, we'll multiply 6 times 3.14159 (pi) and get 18.849". Now, if we divide 18.849" by 360 (the number of degrees in a circle), we find that one degree on the damper ring would measure 0.05235". Now, using your estimate of 1 1/2" of slip, we'll divide 1.5 by 0.05235 and find that the damper ring had slipped more than 28 degrees, 28.653295 degrees to be exact.

For the rest of you fellows out there who want to nail down TDC like streeter did and also make a mark where you want to set your advance, here's how. Follow the instructions in this thread like he did and find TDC, then center punch the damper ring and put a spot of white or yellow paint in the dot so your timing light will pick it up easily. Now figure out what 1 degree is on the ring with the math I have outlined above. If you want to set initial at for instance, 12 degrees BTDC, move to the right of your TDC mark and center punch the ring again, using a dot of paint. For instance, using the 6 inch ring example, 12 times 0.05235" would be 0.628", so using your dial caliper, move 0.628" to the right of your TDC mark to center punch the advance point.

I'll do another example with an 8" ring. 8 times 3.14159 is 25.13272". Dividing 25.13272" by 360 equals 0.069813" for each degree. If you wanted to move 12 degrees ahead of TDC for your timing point, you'd multiply 12 times 0.069813" and find that you want to move 0.837756" (rounded off to 0.838") to the right of TDC to make your center punch mark.

Now, the last thing on this subject is that if the damper ring has slipped already, it's probably going to slip some more. The only thing to do is to replace the damper or have your damper rebuilt. These guys will rebuild your damper to bulletproof for about $50 for a small block Chevy damper.....
http://www.damperdoctor.com/

Thanks for the encouragement Tech,

It turned out to be rather simple once I calmed down and concentrated on what I was trying to do. You're right about the calipers. They get it dead on.

FYI- the reason that I turned the engine by hand was that the retaining bolt backed off when I tryed counter clockwise rotation. Are these bolts not tourqed down? The assembly didnt seem loose, saw a keyway, are these HB pressed on? The 3 pulley bolts were good and tight.

Yeah, the damper retainer bolt is supposed to be torqued down, it's just that the torque required to turn the motor over exceeded the hold-down torque which had been applied to the bolt by the person who installed it.

With all the plugs removed, it shouldn't require more than about 35 ft./lbs. of breakaway torque to rotate the motor. If more than that is required, something's bound up.

you did good!