Hello everyone !
You know what puts a smile on my face?
Driving in town- Phoenix Az- look over at a truck in nice shape, taken care of, to see a girl in her late 20s early 30s !
I get her attention as we sit at the light and tell her - so nice to see a girl behind the wheel of a truck, she then says she likes my old ford also and then says she bought it from a family member years ago and has been working on it herself for several years now as her smile grew ! I said it looked good on her and to keep it up (even though it was a Chevy.) She said thanks.
All old trucks need to be saved and used as they were to be just saying.
Now my question
Have a 78 F150 with 351M and c-6. have a steel timing gears and chain that has some play, went in and rotated the distributer for slop and does good - rebuilt engine has about 55 thousand. Would like to remove the gears and chain to replace with double rollers and double gears and double chain, friend at a shop did it to his truck years ago so he would have no slip or stretch as he put it --- his F250 think 79 and 4 weel drive with a 460 built up for HECK OF A LOT OF HP. he said back then it would solve my issues. so would like to know about how much time might a shop take to replace the timing gears and chain?
Thank you all

 

What issues? How much play did you find in your test? They don't slip, though they can jump timing if too loose but reads like you already checked play, and even one put in last month will have some play if used..

 

I think that I would try removing the fuel pump and then taking a peek inside of the timing cover to see if the chain hasn't already been replaced with a double roller. Many people do that on a rebuild and on those engines switching to the zeroed out non retarded set can be a pretty nice improvement.

Slack in the chain can mean little to nothing when it comes to performance. A chain that's over tight can cost a surprising amount of power.

 

Engine had about 40,000 and found play. It was about 3 deg. off and harmonic balancer was new when rebuilt the engine also put in a distributor that had the ford shaft with the chevy top so have more adjustment on the distributor when rebuilt. has chip in cap - removed box on fender.at that time. The shop pulled distributor and set #1 TDS then dropped distributor back in. (The truck seems to be temperamental and likes to diesel at times been a few years since he rotated the distributor)
Could I have more slop or play in the chain again? Guy at the shop who worked on truck yrs ago said he remembers the truck being temperamental with mix and mentioned about possible vap lock in hot weather but we already wrapped fuel lines under hood and another item the carb and intake was changed a few years ago from 2 bbl and cast iron intake to a small edelbrock 4 bbl and same name intake.
Wonder if the fuel line from the two tanks and selector switch needs to be wrapped
Has fuel pump on engine and another just past fuel selector valve to overcome any delay of fuel from either tank.
my current grip is the occasional run on after key off - turn off, still running then turn key back on and truck runs as if never key off.

 

sorry meant the truck was dieseling when key turned off the key back on and truck takes off as if never turned key off to stop truck

 

The owner of the shop years ago was the one who rebuilt the engine he put in a good steal gears and chain but never said it was a roller. Have known the shop for 18 yrs

 

A roller timing set is a nice upgrade, but by no means vastly superior.

Set your timing curve, forget about it.

 

My memory isn't what it used to be so I may be off a bit.
Rotate your engine the opposite way it runs and line the timing marks up to TDC and then rotate the engine the opposite direction it runs.
Then watch the distributer rotor and as soon as it starts to move stop and look at where the timing mark on the damper moved and that's how much slop is in the chain.
I want to say 10 degrees is about the most you want.

Famous Pro-Stock drag racer Grumpy Bill Jenkins ran regular timing sets instead of double or true rollers because he felt that the chain stretch at high RPMs retarded to cam timing a few degrees and that gave him a few more RPM and power.

People used to replace stock timing sets on 335 and 385 series Ford engines with roller sets because the could set the cam time 4° advanced to gain a little more low end power over the stock factory cam timing.

If you have steel gears with only 55k on them I'm not sure there' any gain other than your piece of mind.

 

Dieseling/run on is caused by having an idle that is too high.

 

Truck going in for drive line universals replace on the 23rd so will look at things then about run on etc.

 

I have a 351M, in a '77. Idle set about 800 rpm. Holley 600 carburetor, Edelbrock Performer400 intake, has a old Crane fireball cam. Distributor is stock with a Mr. Gasket quick advance spring kit that causes mechanical advance all in before 2,000 rpm. To set timing, I disconnect vacuum to distributor, plug it, then put my timing light on and set the distributor at 34-35 degrees BTC after 2,000 rpm. My H-B is scribed to up at 45 degrees in 5 degree steps past Factory marks. I have no idea what initial timing is without just subtracting whatever the distributor mechanical has from that. I then unplug and reconnect the vacuum hose to distributor vacuum can. I use a 180 degree t-stat. I do not have run on.

My timing chain (standard multi plate quiet chain on steel sprockets about 50-60K miles) has under 5 degrees slack on the timing marks doing that test above (in post 8) on 11/19/2024 My timing chain slack was checked by rotating the H-B backwards and stop, marked H-B at pointer, then I slowly rotated forward as I watched the distributor rotor, as soon as I detected the slightest movement on rotor, I stopped and marked the H-B again. It was right at 1/4" between the marks, on a 6-7/16" (6.4375") OD H-B and that is between 4 and 5 degrees. (Math is 6.4375" x 3.1416 (pi) = 20.22405" (circumfrence) x 4 = 80.8962 quarter inch segments around the outer edge. 360 degrees divided by 80.8962 = 4.450378 degrees per quarter inch of circumference.)

If you do decide to pay a shop to replace the timing set, might as well do the water pump too.

 

slack in the chain is irrelevant to your timing once it's properly adjusted. the load on the chain is always in the same direction so the slack is always on the unloaded side .