Yay, happy to hear that problem solved, now you can getter done.

 

They are supposed to be like this. On OEM chainsets the chain had two gold links.

 

That makes sense now.

 

Glad to see this part of the story has a happy ending. What do you think about driving the finished product down to the Marina swap meet this fall??? Plenty of room for merchandise!

 

I meant seven links in my previous post. Twelve pins is correct as per Ross's diagram.

Here's how it's set now after the reset.




It looks to be in the correct position. I'll rotate the camshaft tomorrow to match Ross's diagram to make sure the chain is installed correctly for the timing.

 

It appears I'm late to the party, congratulations on solving the problem. Good thing you didn't throw in the towel as you can now use it to wipe the sweat off your brow, the grease off your hands, and get to some happy times motoring down the highway!

 

Good work on this one and a fun thread to follow. But don't feel bad. Most, if not all of us have had a timing problem that we agonized and wasted a ton of hours trying to figure it out.

 

That's a good catch Ilya! Keep us posted when you fire it up.

I'm a little concerned about your rebuilder....I've overhauled/rebuilt a lot of engines over the years....both automotive and aircraft. I always have the shop manual on the bench. All engines are not the same. I usually want to know torque values, piston ring end gaps, valve clearances, and occasionally, how the timing marks are supposed to align. I hate to be a Monday morning quarterback, but in your pic, the marks don't align very well...I would have had to check the manual to see why.

I guess you missed the 4th of July parade this year, but you should be ready for the Christmas parade!!!
Dan

 

It looks like Ilya's crank may be turned just a little in the picture to where the marks don't look right in relationship to the chain.

 

Yes....usually, on a small block V8, there is a dot stamped on the root of the "V" in one of the gears...and a dot stamped in the tip of the "V" on the other gear...on assembly you align the two dots in a "peak to valley" arrangement. I'd be looking at the book if I found the dots on the peaks of both gears...but then in my younger days I've screwed up this job (just once buy aligning the cam one tooth off) and ended up pulling the engine to fix my error. As I recall it was on a 289 & the timing cover mated to the pan gasket, so it became what I think of as a painful lesson learned.

I admit...the counting links approach is new and different for me!!!

It is cool that Ilya's rebuilder is taking responsibility for the mistake....in the end it looks like things are working out.

 

Some engine timing that blows my mind is on some of the tractors which have several gears to time. Once you put then in time you have to turn the engine over 30 or more times before the marks will line up again.

 

This is one of the best mysteries that I have read in a long time, lots of unusual characters, a good plot and a happy ending.

Or is it? We still don't know if the thing will actually run. Got to leave something for the sequel I guess.

Seriously, hope it all goes well from here on out; that is one cool little panel.

 

Yes, but it is definitely spaced 12 pins between the marks.

Glad you found his error Ilya, and sorry it was double the work to get it right. "...never enough time to do it right, but always time to do it over" comes to mind. I love your panel, and hope to see a video when you fire it up.

You'll definitely be driving it again before I ever drive mine.

 

Ilya,

Congrats! I'm sure anxious to read the post where you say that it fired up and sounded great! no leaks, no noises, etc

Stick with it
Bobby

 

timing is wrong