Chinaski

I hope that the outer ring hasn't spun the balancer.


Regardless, '73 L82 350. Car came with an HEI Distributor w/o Tach drive.

I bought a new Distributor w/ Tach Drive and in order to get comfortable with doing this job, I put the timing light on it with the old distributor to see where it is.

FYI, plugged the vac advance, verified that all wires are going to the correct spot on the distributor cap (quadruple checked this), Timing light was set at zero etc, Pickup on the #1 blah blah. I'm 99.9% sure I'm doing it right on my end. About the only thing I haven't done is verify TDC and the mark on the HB and timing tab.

I'm assuming my HB has problems. Using my light, I can see he timing mark passenger side not quite 180 degrees opposite of where it should be.

So, what does a Harmonic Balancer Job entail? Looks like the water pump has to be pulled. Might as well do the radiator if I do that. And the captain obvious timing chain and cover, may as well do that while I'm in there is well. Anything else?

I'm going to verify TDC and borrow a timing light to see if the one I have is defective to be sure, but I'm all out of idears. BTW, car runs fine.

johnt365

Real quick, you said the light was set at zero. You want to advance your light until the balancer mark is at zero on the timing tab. That will tell you your timing and you can determin from that reading if you think the balancer ring has slipped.

What is your base timing reading?

Chinaski

i'll go look

Chinaski

Nada.

johnt365

what kind of timing light do you have? What do you mean nada, no matter what you set your light at you could not get the mark on the tab?

Chinaski

Innova 3568

johnt365

I have the same light. If you use the up and down arrows it should change the degree setting. doing so will move the mark up or down until you get it to line up with the zero on the tab.

I guess I am thinking you may have a lot of advance and just havent gone far enough on your light. It just seems like you should be able to get it to zero out unless things are just terribly wrong. I apologize if I have misunderstood the situation.

Mooser

Oh God not again (one of these threads went stupid a few months ago http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c3-t...0-degrees.html)

1st thing 1st
180 degrees off would put the mark at the bottom of the passenger side (1/2 way around, opposite from the timing tab), you shouldn't be able to see it from the top of the engine.
Are you sure it's 180 degrees off?

If it is out 180, try hooking your timing light to the number 6 wire and see what happens.

Note the number 1 wire location on the cap, Take the distributor cap off and bump the starter until the rotor points to where that terminal was, look at the timing tab, in theory the line should be handy to being on the tab.

If you can, remove the center bolt from the balancer and locate the keyway on the shaft (mirror), it should pretty much point right at the timing line on the outer ring

HIH
Mooser

Chinaski

Update....

The Harmonic Balancer spun the outer ring. I replaced it with a new Power Bond unit from O, O, O, O'Reilly and installed the new Tach Drive HEI distributor and everything is working correctly.

A bit of a job for a working Tach, but it was worth it.

Mooser

Thank you for closing off the thread and telling us the end result.

Mooser