I have a 83 Ford 250 with a 6.9 Diesel International. The problem I have is lining up the timing gear correctly. (Note this truck came out of a treeline and sat for two years.) I was able to get it to running again. Determined it had a blown head gasket by compression test. I had pulled the heads and rebuilt them. When I did this,I had removed the fuel pump and injectors assembly from the top. Now I am not sure if I am getting the timing gear back in the correct position? It starts but smokes white terribly until it warms up. Runs better when it is warm. Do I have to pull the water pump and front housing to see the timing marks? I checked a book out from the Library and they call out a special device that is placed into the #1 glow plug position. Do I need this to confirm the timeing?
Any help would be appreciated on checking the timing as I have never worked on a diesel before.

 

Hi,

welcome to FTE. There are two diffrent ways for the timing (Injection pump) The Static timing and the Dynamic timing.
You can do the staitc timing by yourself, there is a timing mark on the gear housing and the injection pump. The two marks should aligned.

Diesel engines are very senstive to slight changes in timing and the Dynamic timing is more accurate than static timning.
The best is when you visit your local Diesel shop to make a proper Dynamic timing. There are several expensive tools necessary to do the timing.

Jens

 

The white smoke is normal when cold. You could have some bad glow plugs or a bad afterglow circuit that will make it worse than usual.

Yes you have to pull the water pump and the front housing to see the timing marks on the crank, camshaft and injection pump drive gear.

But there is more than that to it.

The motor should have been set to #1 piston at TDC before removing the injection pump drive gear.
Then you can line up the TDC mark on the dampener and the O's on the crank and cam gears and the y's on the cam and injection pump drive gear. When all of this is right the dowel on the injection pump drive gear will be at 4 o'clock.
As Jens said the two timing marks on the top of the injection pump gear housing and the one on the injection pump should also line up.

Before I went through all of that I think I would opt for the dynamic timing provided it does fire on all cylinders and runs fairly smoothly after warming up. If it is doing that then it has to be close.

 

How's the combustion rattle sound? If it's real quiet it's retarded, if it sounds like a power stroke it's too advanced.

 

Malcolm ... isnt there a way to look down inside the timing tower and see the paint on the cam gear and then lower the pump drive gear down to match that? I could dig out my old books and look it up if you think that would be easier than removing the front timing cover from the engine.

 

I had tried to look down inside the timing tower to find the mark. There is only about 3/32" clearance which does not allow me to peer inside. Sounds like I need to pursue the dynamic timing Dave and Jens mention. As for starting at TDC I failed to do that.

I want to especially thank Dave for the remark on the afterglo circuit. I did not know this occurred. I will look into this more when I get the timing correct. Currently I manually operate the glow plugs. I had found the module was toast that controls the glow plugs. Since this module costs almost $200 locally, I use a $3 manual button and never engage longer than 3 seconds to prevent burning out the plugs. Seems to work fine as I have been running this way for about two months. If I get the timing to work better, I will try and get a used module.
Any recomendations on finding a used module?

Thanks to everyone for the great feedback!!

 

First, I was under the impression you could find TDC for Cyl. #1 by lining up the mark on the bracket where the dynamic meter parts are attached and the groove on the crankshaft damper.

Second, Jisa, try ebay. You can get a new g.p. controller for an average price of around $100.00, though on a good day you might get it for $80.00. R.A.

 

You can find TDC #1 cylinder by lining up the mark in the dampener with the index mark on bracket......but which TDC is it Compression stroke or exhaust stroke?

As far as the manual glow plug switch it is still no problem....just push it a few times after it starts to help reduce the white smoke.

I have one of those on mine also.

Here in WV I push mine for about 10 seconds, after start I wait about 30 seconds and hit the switch again for about 8 seconds.
If it is real cold I may repeat that 2 or 3 times more.

 

Oh, I forgot to say if you plug it in about three hours before starting you can eliminate the glow plug steps completely.