It's all timing
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It's all timing
Hey guys, some of you know my 85/86/84 saga but for those of you that don't, here's the scoop! It's an 85 F-150, 302 engine, believed to be from an 86 Lincoln, converted it from tfi, to DSII, manual trans. Why it won't start? I'm fairly certain it's out of time, but I can't seem to get it just right. All the harmonic balancer has on it is a punch mark, I'm assuming this is what represents TDC, if anyone can verify that! When I turn the key, it'll cough, but not rapidly. It is not back firing out of the carb, so it's not 180 out... How do I pinpoint where EXACTLY "in time" would be? Seems like no matter where it is (referring to the distributor rotor) it's just enough out of time where it won't start...
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Joined: Apr 2002
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From: Waterloo, Iowa
Verify #1 cylinder at TDC, compression stroke.
Note location of rotor, should point just prior to #1 tower on distributor cap. Ensure firing order is correct for all wires, etc. if you do this, it should start or nearly so. Try adjusting the distributor slightly and try again. Once it fires use a vacuum gauge to set the timing.
Note location of rotor, should point just prior to #1 tower on distributor cap. Ensure firing order is correct for all wires, etc. if you do this, it should start or nearly so. Try adjusting the distributor slightly and try again. Once it fires use a vacuum gauge to set the timing.
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Verify #1 cylinder at TDC, compression stroke.
Note location of rotor, should point just prior to #1 tower on distributor cap. Ensure firing order is correct for all wires, etc. if you do this, it should start or nearly so. Try adjusting the distributor slightly and try again. Once it fires use a vacuum gauge to set the timing.
Note location of rotor, should point just prior to #1 tower on distributor cap. Ensure firing order is correct for all wires, etc. if you do this, it should start or nearly so. Try adjusting the distributor slightly and try again. Once it fires use a vacuum gauge to set the timing.
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From: Virginia
Take the spark plug wire out of #1 cylinder, and put your finger over the hole to plug it off, and turn the engine over till air starts blowing out around your finger. Stop and slowly turn the engine the same direction with a socket till the mark comes around. If you have no pointer at all to go with the mark, you may have to take the valve cover off the pass side and verify where you are at by looking at the rocker arms on #1 cylinder.
You can get things mixed up on these engines if you use the wrong balancer with the wrong timing cover/pointer bracket.
You can get things mixed up on these engines if you use the wrong balancer with the wrong timing cover/pointer bracket.
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Take the spark plug wire out of #1 cylinder, and put your finger over the hole to plug it off, and turn the engine over till air starts blowing out around your finger. Stop and slowly turn the engine the same direction with a socket till the mark comes around. If you have no pointer at all to go with the mark, you may have to take the valve cover off the pass side and verify where you are at by looking at the rocker arms on #1 cylinder.
You can get things mixed up on these engines if you use the wrong balancer with the wrong timing cover/pointer bracket.
You can get things mixed up on these engines if you use the wrong balancer with the wrong timing cover/pointer bracket.
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From: AZ
Might be too much fuel. It sounds like it is choking and then the back fire is coming out the exhaust. Were you able to identify TDC?
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Yeah, I found tdc, that actually makes a lot of sense, I hadn't thought of that.... I'll tinker around with it, make some adjustments, then I'll post what I can get to happen!
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To my knowledge, the firing order changed in 1995, there was only one before that correct?
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If the engine is a h.o then it will have the 351 firing order. Be glad you don't have the ****ty efi ...
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It's not ho, I ran the number on the old dizzy, it said 86 Lincoln town car, they didn't put the h.o. In those. That was a truck and stang thing... It was efi at one point, the p.o. Switched it to carb and did a real hack job on the wiring, all that in consideration I decided to just switch it over to DSII... Dunno what happened but I tried starting it before doing anything and, well, truck no go bang anymore... Won't cough either, gonna tinker with the timing...
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From: Virginia
Anyone can put a HO style cam in any 302 and that will change the firing order. You are correct, the 302 HO's were only in the mustangs(the truck's didn't have them either) and your LIncoln engine should have the regular firing order, but you never know sometimes.