tearing my hair out with timing trouble... please someone save me!

[WBKrazy]

ok, here goes. here's the basics: i have a '91 eddie b. 5.0, that for the life of me will not run right. full tune up done 2 months ago ran the same afterwards. disclaimer: i am a tech by trade so i usually know what i'm doin but this truck has me goin crazy!! i know much about chevys but am kinda new to the ford game. the check engine light will come on and go off while driving, but could idle all day without tripping it, which of course means that as soon as you park long enough to hook up the scantool eveything is lost. koeo test finds nothing. i ran the koer test on it and came up with a couple codes: 311 (thermactor inop), an egr code (forget which one) and base timing being set wrong. this is where it gets tricky: of course the timing is the main thing i worry about, but i cant turn the distributor far enough to the right to bring it to 10 degrees because the damm thing hits the thermostat housing. turned until touching the housing base timing is borderline ATC maybe 1 or 2 degrees. you would think the dist. was off a tooth but it doesn't appear to be... brought motor up to tdc by hand and the rotor lines up with the no.1 post on the cap. it runs smooth, no skips or anything, but i've tried adjusting this twice now, 1st by ear and now with a light, and it seems that now that i'm closer to where it should be it pings much louder that when it was advanced more! anyone in the RI/MA/CT/NH area that can help a guy out? i don't mind travel so let me know, i can offer money or beer

 

[BroncoJoe19]

Just a reminder... you have to pull the SPOUT connector before you set your timing, and then put it back in.

joe

 

[WBKrazy]

[i know... i took it on a 20 minute ride to warm up beforehand too.. i have alldata thru work and i followed the procedure by the book both times

 

[BroncoJoe19]

I have a '90 with a 302 in it. Assuming that my timing is set properly, I took a picture of my distributor for your reference.

I clamped a line to the front of the coil wire boot, (the little red things in the pic are a part of the clamp) and pulled it straight out to the driver's fender so that it formed a right angle.

You should be able to see the cap clamp in the pic to the left and that the line runs right over the boot that goes to cyl 7.

I am thinking that if yours looks very different from this, and if like you say, while your crank is at TDC your rotor is pointing to cyl number 1, then perhaps you should do a compression test, to see if your timing chain didn't jump a tooth.

There are a number of real mechanics that hang here, me... I'm just an arm chair mechanic who never turned a wrench and got paid for it.

Please let me know what you think of this line of thought.

Otherwise you may want to discribe a little more fully how she is running, and what symptoms she has.



Good luck,

joe

 

[WBKrazy]

hey there.... i thought about the compression test, but i think the motors fine cause it doesn't skip or idle rough, but when youre driving it starts acting up.. it runs fine until it shifts out of 2nd and into 3rd and then starts pinging like a bastard.. check engine light is on almost all the time i'm on the highway, yet during in town driving it comes on and goes off quite frequently, and by the time you stop long enough to hook up a scanner the lights goes off and no codes are found. the light will not come on while idleing. i have a scantool, and i ran the KOEO test and it found no problems. then i did the KOER test, and it comes up with a code for base timing set wrong. after warming up motor and pulling the spout connector, checked timing and it was pretty far off, which explains the pinging. however, when you go to turn the dist. to time it, it won't turn far enough to bring it to 10 degrees because the module hits the thermostat housing. this i would think should indicate that the dist. is installed wrong, but like i said it idles fine and no skips, and i brought it up to TDC and the rotor is lined up with the #1 post on the cap.

 

[BroncoJoe19]

The last time I pulled a distributor was on a '64 Rambler, but the basics are the same.

It appears to me that moving the distributor shaft one tooth will equivalent to approx 30 degrees. That should give you the room needed so that you could set it at 10 BTDC.

You may need a better mechanic than me on this, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it. /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />

BTW... did you look at the picture I posted to see how it compares to how your distributor is lining up?