Possible Timing Difficulties

[woodjeep]

I just put the new timing chain and gears on the stroker. It is the cloyes double roller chain. Nice and snug. I am using the haynes Manual and it is unclear on several points. I have the number 1 cyl set to TDC by visual piston movement and the timing cover marks. I have the cam dot and tooth in a perfectly straight line with the crank gear dot and tooth.(hopefully see the pictures below). the haynes then says to turn the crank untill the cam dot is at a 1 oclock ref and count the links to the crank dot. It should be 15 pins. there is no way my dots can ever be 15 pins apart due to the distance between them...Iam much higher. also they show the cam shaft and crank shaft on a horizontal plane instead of the normal 15 degree angle offset for a normal positioning of the engine. who has recentlt installed a new chain and gears and how did you do it..Thanks

Timing Gears 002.JPG

Timing Gears 003.JPG

Timing Gears 005.JPG

[amcinstaller]

having done a few timing belts recently in other engines and seeing the worn units in three jeep I6s, looks good to me. someone else should chime in soon though.

[Cheromaniac]

Looks right to me too.

[Plechtan]

Different years used different pitch chain and number of teeth. I have a cam sproket off of a 2002 wj and it has 48 teeth, I have a nylon covered sproket form a Jeep I6 and it has 36 teeth ( year unknown) . I believe the aftermarket sets use 36 teeth for the cam and 18 on the crank.

[John]

Yes, the Cloyes set is different than the OEM timing set. Don;t use the link count to go by, I use a degree wheel to dial in a cam, Initial setup i match mark as you did and run a straight edge to the outside of each sprocket crossing the two match marks, you will see the teeth and marks align when you have it. I still advise a degree wheel setup. Your photos seem to have it.
John

[gradon]

I was frustrated when I had the dots lined up and couldn't get the 15 links either--I just went with it and it worked. I will be renting Chris's degree wheel when we put Nick's together though.

[SilverXJ]

Do you have a degree wheel? If not I suggest you borrow/buy one to check your timing. I just installed a cam that looked dead on, but degreeing it in revealed that it was actually 13* out.

[woodjeep]

Yes I picked up one of the mopar performance wheels last week.(It was only 20 something bucks-nice metal) Can you do it by eye(watching a pushrod) or do you need a dial indicator? Can it be done with the head not installed yet . Any links on how to do it..thanks

[omegatron]

you need a dial indicator to degree the cam...unless you eyes can distinguish .050'' there are a few youtube vids on degreeing a cam as well as some good pics in the project section of this site, and info from comp cams technical web site.

It should be done w/o the head installed, using the dial indicator to find tdc, then check the cam intake lift at .050'' and so on...

good luck!

[Plechtan]

They make a mechanical stop that goes into the spark plug hole. With the degree wheel on the crank you turn the engine in one direction until it hits the stop. Mark this on the degree wheel. now turn in the other direction until it stops, mark this on the wheel. Take the stop out and rotate the engine so that the pointer is midway between the two marks. Now loosen the degree wheel and rotate it so that zero is lined up with the pointer.

By the way when the engine is at TDC on the compression stroke, the key on on the crank is at 12 o"clock and the pin or key on the cam is at 3 o'clock.

[woodjeep]

I just had time to degree wheel the cam today. I am using the Comp Cam 68-232-4 and the Cloyes double roller timing set . The card with the cam states all the specs listed are set for a 110 intake centerline. The degree wheel came from the Mopar-Jeep performance website BUT would you believe the wheel is not made for a 258 crank. The center hole is too small to fit onto the crankshaft so I had to take it to work and drill the center out around 1/8 inch so it slid onto my crank. The Cloyes crank gear is 3 way adjustable. Their gear has a square keyway slot...a curved keyway slot and a pointy keyway slot. Since the crank keyway is square you would think the slot to use is also the square but that is not the case. For Factory timing they want you to use the curved slot which I did. That configuration matched up perfectly with the stock gear I had taken off. The square slot is to retard the timing 4 deg and the pointy slot is to advance the timing 4 deg. Comp Cams directions have you do the degree wheel check with the head and pushrods installed. I have not gotten that far so I had to do it with the head off...Problem...The lifters are so far down in the block that I could never get my dial indicator that far down to measure. I went to Home depot and got the hardest 7/8 dia wood dowell and cut it to approx 5 inches long on my chopsaw to make the ends as square as possible. I cleaned up the edges, oiled it up and dropped it in the #1 intake lifter slot (the 2nd one) . I had previously made a measuring plate and marked exactly TDC using the dial indicator. I aligned all my measuring equipment as best I could and cranked the pistons around until I got max lift on the indicator. Suprisingly it was at 109-110 deg exactly what the card specified. I then did it using their instructions for measuring the angles at .050 before and after the max lift point and came up with 110.5. I did it several times to be sure and was very close to the 110 each time. There were minor variations of about a deg or so due to the fact that the dowell can move a little in the slot. I will recheck once the head is on but it seems to be installed correctly up to this point. The Comp Cam spec card gives a ton of info. I don't think I can verify too much of it but I did measure the lobe lift and got .288 and the card specifies .289 so I think the cam is probably cut correctly since I measured with a piece of wood. Thanks for the help so far

Degree Wheel.jpg

[SilverXJ]

Instead of your dowel I just used a pushrod. Each time I degreed the cam it was always a few degrees off on one or two measurements.