I bought an 83 Ford F150 4x4 w/ a 5.0 a few weeks ago and have been doing some minor repairs on the motor. Two questions:

1. I have a small capacitor looking thing that is attached on top of the coil. I broke the single terminal coming out of it. What does this small cylinder do?

2. For whatever reason I am missing my timing pointer. I, of course, have the timing marks on my harmonic balancer but the timing pointer has been removed. Where is this normally located on these vehicles? If someone can give my an exact location then this will help me time my engine.

Also, I removed the distributor from this vehicle and the ink marking was dissolved by gas. In other words, I have no reference to how the distributor goes back in. Is there any easy way to locate top dead center in this vehicle?

 

The little capacitors are located at different places under the hood. They are used to suppress noise that would get into the radio, especially AM radio.

Since you don't have a pointer, and don't know where TDC is, you need to make yourself a piston stop. Get an old sparkplug, knock the guts out of it, and weld in the center a metal rod that sticks out the end of the sparkplug where the tip used to be. If you are not up to this, then go by a local engine shop and get them to help you make one, or maybe you can borrow one of theirs.

Screw this piston stop into #1 cylinder(front passenger side). Turn the engine by hand till the quits moving and hits the stop. Somehow make a mark on the engine where the "0" on the balancer is. Then turn the engine the opposite direction till it stops again. Make another mark on the engine where the "0" is. Now carefully measure between the two marks, and in the exactly halfway between these two marks is TDC, and is where the pointer should be.

When you get that figured out, take the stop out, and put your thumb over the #1 sparkplug hole. Get someone to turn the engine over, and when you feel air pushing by your thumb, start looking at the pointer. Run it up to about 10 degrees BTDC and stop. Find #1 sparkplug wire on the cap, make a note where it is, take the cap off, and make sure the rotor is pointed to the #1 wire. This should be close enough for it to start.

 

Thanks for your help Dave. So what should I do about the capacitor that is broken? Can I get a replacement?

As far as your technique goes for finding TDC, wouldn't this find bottom dead center? The reason I say this is because in your method you aren't letting the piston fully travel up to the top of the cylinder. Instead you are measuring from (as the crank rotates) from 'almost top' of the cylinder (the spark plug tool is stopping it) down to the bottom of the cylinder and then back up to 'almost top' of the cylinder. The middle of this should be BDC. Am I right?

I heard another way was to sick a dowl rod into the 1st cylinder on the compression stroke. When the stick stops moving up, place a mark on the engine block. When the stick starts moving down, place another mark on the engine block. The middle of these should be TDC.

What do you think?

 

It's hard to determine when the piston is at the very top, because you can move the crankshaft quit a bit, and the dowel rod is not going to move as the connecting rod swings over the top.

The method I described will find TDC. You are coming up on either side of TDC. So when you measure between the marks, and divide this by 2, then you are getting TDC exactly where it should be.

 

Ah, I see what you are saying. Yes, that is a good idea. I will try that and let you know how it goes.