I had heard mention of this, and i was wondering if anyone on here had heard about the dampener slipping, causing the timing marks to be off. I went out to my truck and snapped this pic:
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...4/IMAG0992.jpg
I can see the rubber underneath the dampener looks a little odd. Is there a tool that I can find the top-dead-center of the piston??

 

dampeners can slip , any reason you think your slipped ?

 

Yes it can slip. Just remove cyl. one plug, remove right bank valve cover. Tape up the end of a long screwdriver to keep from scratching inside cylinder and insert into spark plug hole. You may have to remove all plugs if too much to turn motor by hand, but you then can rotate the crankshaft with a socket. Right when 1 intake rocker arms starts to close you will be approaching TDC. Watch the screwdriver it will start to tilt or push out. Slowly continue to turn while "feeling" room in the cylinder with the screwdriver. At TDC you will have very little room to wiggle the screwdriver and it may be almost pushed all the way out. This is very close to TDC. Check your mark on your balancer to see if it's line up with timing marker.

 

The rubber rots out and that causes it to slip. I seen the end result of one flying out once, needed new radiator,water pump and fan. Got lucky the crank did not get wiped out!

 

Its got 400k on it so weird things may start to happen. Ive been getting a lot of detonation when i put the timing at 10 degrees. Ive backed it off a little and that helped. I just recently heard that this could happen, some have said that the timing marks may get knocked off. Also heard that it can slip back far enough and start to eat through the timing chain cover, throwing metal shards everywhere.

It may be fine, i couldn't tell by looking at it. I thought there might be some gauge that you could stick in the spark plug hole to detect TDC

 

IF IT HAS 400,000 MILES THEN THERE WILL BE MORE TO WORRY ABOUT THAN THE BALANCER ! look for another engine or decide what to do with the one you have !

 

i would do a compression test on all the cylinders and then check for tdc like 73fomo recommended and if the dampner isnt at tdc then its bad