Due to Sunday being my wife's birthday, I didn't get a chance to check my timing/idle/mixture, but I did have a few spare minutes to make sure the timing light works (it does). However, I'll be darned if I could find any sign of timing marks. I couldn't even find the little pointy thing to indicate the timing. Amy I blind or just stupid? I assumed they'd be on the crank pulley. It's an 83 F100 with the 300 6. Anyone have a picture or some other help in locating the marks?

Thanks.

 

timing degree indicators should be on the camshaft cover on the driver side of the engine. The line itself should be on the crank pulley.

 

Ah, OK, I was looking at the engine head on and couldn't even figure out where there was a place for them

Thx.

 

on the v6 engine your timing scale will be on the engine block and the crankshaft pulley will have a notch on it. the notch's position in relation to the scale on the block when the light flashes is your timing. the numbers to the left of 0 when looking at it from the front indicate btdc, numbers to the right of 0 indicate atdc.

 

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Look where the lower radiator hose meets the water pump on the engine.
I set my timing in the 10-12 DEG range.
Jim

 

Ok, I'm off to an interesting start. I had a few minutes tonight so I wanted to check on the timing, since it would be the fastest between idle, mixture and timing. I'll have time tomorrow night to mess with all of them, but I digress. I had to haul some stuff to the dump, so the truck was good and warm. I pulled the vac line off the distributor and checked the timing. It was 17.5 BTDC. With the vac line connected, it was 35 BTDC! Ok, I know the mixture and idle haven't been set (and the test light/tach says curb idle in park is 950, so it's definitely high), but would the extra idle move the vac advance that much? Would the high idle advance the timing with the vac advance disconnected?

I may be jumping the gun by looking at the timing before properly setting the mix and idle, and I'm sure y'all get tired of what are probably the most rudimentary questions to many of you, but this is still a whole new world to me, and I do appreciate it.

 

You will not believe how long it took me to find the timing marks on my Ford 460. My uncle found them straight away, after I searched the the little marker arrow deal and swearing my harmonic balancer was busted off. He found them in under 10 minutes where as I looked or a hour or so. I climb all around under etc. He looked straight on the passenger side and found them. I'm noticing it takes him about 1/5 the time to work on something as it takes me but he does have 20-30 years experience lol.

 

Oh, I found the marks no problem after the very helpful post from Jim above, I'm just questioning weather I should be concerned with the current timing.

 

There are 3 stages of timing. Mechanical which is called initial timing/advance that is done through your timing marks and then adjusting your distributor accordingly. Your second portion of that is vacuum advance which is adjusted with an allen key through your vaccumn pot on your distributor. Vac advance+mechanical advance=total advance/timing. IIRC one doesn't want more than 36* total advance.

 

Could be the mech advance stuck or coming in early combined with high idle. Watch the timing while you slowly raise rpm's with vac advance unhooked. It sould advance when you raise rpm's

 

I could be mistaken, but I seem to notice two places for timing marks in this thread: one on the driver's side above the cam cover, and the other on the passenger side by the radiator hose. I also seem to notice both sets in my engine compartment. Is this correct or is my brain just going soft?

 

I didn't see anything on the drivers side. Mine looks very similar to the picture Jim posted above.

 

guindian mentioned V-6. I am talking about straight 6. There are additional markers on the pass side of the motor for checking advance timing.