Setting My Timing

[Skandocious]

Whelp! I borrowed my buddy's brand new Craftsman Inductive Timing light and started my first timing check. Removed the SPOUT connector, clamped the front passenger wire (#1 I hope), clamped the battery terminals and fired her up. Shot the light at the balancer and found that someone had already marked it for me, assuming the mark was correct I went ahead and set the timing according to that mark. It spun too fast for me to get a shot of the mark but it looked like this when I started:

So I unscrewed the hold down not on the distributor and rotated it counterclockwise a bit and got it looking like this:

Took the truck out for a drive and it has no power!! I got out onto the main drag and gave her some juice, the engine revved up just fine but the truck barely went anywhere. Anybody know what I did wrong?

 

[6L PWR]

Ah, worked on it yourself? ROFL

 

[blacksnapon]

You need to check where the mark is. Don't trust someone elses mark. There should be faint stamped in marks on the balancer. You need to set it at 10 degrees btdc with the spout connector pulled.

 

[Fellro]

Well, I don't know what it is you are playing with, but you retarded the timing. I would venture to guess that little circle cut out to the left is the target location...

 

[blacksnapon]

Its interesting however, how you got the mark on the other side of the notch in the balancer.

 

[Skandocious]

That's not the actual timing mark, I couldn't snap a picture of it with the light on it while the engine was running so I just painted that white line in with MS Paint so you could see where the mark was before and after I set it...

 

[Skandocious]

Found the problem guys, I found the marks on the balancer and the existing mark is at 0*, I'm not sure which genius marked it there...

I'll remark it at 10* and reset it, thanks for the help guys.

 

[Skandocious]

All fixed. Thanks guys.