Timing is easy Right? - Wrong!

[JayG]

I'm putting the water pump back in and setting up the timing is a piece of cake. Just line up the dotted tooth on the cam gear with the 2 dotted teeth on the pump gear.

WRONG!!!!! My cam gear has 2 dotted teeth right next to each other. I've stared at them thinking one would look like it didn't belong there but no luck. So which is the right one? And if I pick the wrong one how will that affect the performance?

Any tricks on getting these lined up right? Once I have it butoned up I don'e want to take it apart again.

Thanks, Jay

[1936 D2]

What year veh?

[Pete K.]

Jay, Not a big problem... pick your favorite punch mark and bolt up your gears. Hopefully you've got the distributor unit on block. Loosen the little port hole on your flywheel housing, DON'T remove the screw all the way. Follow the instructions for timing on page 71-73 on ignition timing in the Mechanic's Handbook. To summarize, Get to #8 valve lifter, crank the engine 'till you can just turn that lifter with your fingers, putting #1 cylinder in position to FIRE, only if you have the spark lever ADVANCED. The rotor should be right under your # 1 contact in distributor cap. If not, pick the other punch mark on cam gear and try this procedure again. This should verify where those gears mesh correctly.

[JayG]

It's a 25. Pete - Thanks. That sounds like it can solve the problem. I won't be touching it until the end of the week as I'm heading to Hershey.

[TonyAus]

Jay, I think you have your advice mixed up here. The single dotted tooth is on the PUMP gear. It goes between the two dots on the cam gear.

[Pete K.]

Tony, I think he's having a problem with two marks on BOTH gears, If I read his thread right.

[JayG]

That's right. I have 2 marks on both gears. I will try Pete's method and see how that works out.

[JayG]

Pete - That did the trick although I had to follow the instructions on page 71 for the earlier cars. Mine is a A169xxx serial number. It specified to leave the spark lever retarded and use the #8 valve to find TDC for #1. Of course I picked the wrong tooth the first time. 50/50 shot and I lost. That's why I stay out of the casinos. Any way I have the pump back in and the distributer hooked up to it. A few more items to put back on and I'll fire it up. Still don't know why there are 2 punches on both gears.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Jay

[Pete K.]

Glad to hear it's going well Jay, But,as the book reads to make sure you've got a .004" valve tappet clearance on that #8 valve, with the blasted engine "WARMED UP". It seems like a Catch 22, since you're doing this procedure to GET it running! So,-- would we aim for .003"?? on that #8 valve clearance, cold? One must realize here that a very slight variation on this valve clearance on the #8 will make the crankshaft turn WAY more PAST tdc than it should be!! Meaning in the long run, you'll lose you first inch of your hand spark lever, whereas engine may kick back on starting and too advanced while driving using the normal action on the spark lever. Jay, is there ANY WAY you can find even a real picture of someone's EARLY '25 engine taken apart to try and figure out which punch mark is for real? They would need to somehow measure from the hub, out to the tooth where the correct punch mark should be. I'm beginning to think we need more help here on this problem.

[JayG]

Just when I thought I had this thing licked..... Pete your concerns are valid. Seeing that I was only trying to find the correct teeth to line up I think I may be OK. This was running well before I disassembled it. The other tooth was way off. In order to time it properly I can warm it up and set #8 to .004 then adjust the distributer cam as described in the Mechanic's Manual. I think I'm OK with the assembly part. I'll let you know how this turns out.

[JayG]

Just wanted to post a followup to this thread. After the multiple tooth dilemma I had it all back together and she started but ran like crap. Decided it was necessary to pull the newly painted timing cover off and determine exactly what I had to do to get the gears lined up. Well I got a big surprise when I did. The timing gear sprocket and crank sprocket had yellow paint marks that lined up when I set #4 exhaust to just closed. I then discovered that the cam gear was actually installed rotated one bolt hole. It may not even be the correct gear. Anyway what I ended up doing is adjusting the valves cold. I went to .005 and .006 which is .002 more than the specified warm setting. They were all over the place so this got them all where they needed to be. I then followed the timing instructions on page 71 of the mechanics manual for cars before A193533. This procedure allowed me to get the water pump gear and the cam gear teeth alligned correctly. Then I put it all back together again and ready to go. Right? Wrong. It ran fine but after all of the effort to fix the leaks and I still had a leak in the rear of the oil pan. Oh and did I mention the seapage from the radiator which didn't exist before I stripped and painted it.

Removed the radiator and had it fixed. Still not sure if I have a rear seal leak or what. Started looking at it closely and saw some dripping around the rivets that hold the flywheel cover to the pan. OK it's either a rear seal or the rivets. It then dawned on me that I had banged out a large dent in the front of the pan before painting it. Maybe that whack long ago had loosened the solder around the rivet. Dropped the pan again and tilted it backward with some water trapped in the rear area where the rivets are and lo and behold it started dripping. Fixed that by roughing up the solder a little and smearing JB Weld over the solder. Tested for leaks and then reinstalled the pan. Another $50 pan gasket. Anyway long story short I took it out today and she runs great with no leaks. Tough getting there but now I can move on to other areas. Here are some pics of what it looks like now.

[1936 D2]

Absolutely Excellent!

[Guest 1930]

Looks great, I do not think I have ever seen that type of cover, pass side, what is the story behind that?

[Pete K.]

Jay, Glad to hear and see you've got it tackled. This was a good case of one step forward and three steps backward. When these things happen, I step back and think about how OLD these cars really are and thank heavens we can fix most every leak and squeak that crops up. It could be worse I guess. Your engine compartment is gorgeous. I too, have not seen that rounded type air plenum before. If that is a re-make, it certainly came out nice. I have the remnants of an original Dodge heater plenum that is squared off, rather than round. It's beyond restoration though. I'll be needing a raccoon coat and hat if I ever get my Dodge registered and drive it in chilly weather.

[JayG]

The heater plenum was on it when I bought the car. It has a metal sliding vent cut into and screwed to the floorboards. There's a little trap door near the firewall with embossing that reads Open In Summer. Pete youa are right about the racoon coat. The idea of driving something like this in New england winters is scary. I don't know how they did it back in the day. No defrosters, manual wipers, little to no heat. We have to appreciate the comforts (and safety) that we take for granted today.