Timing the cam - what about the intermediate shaft tocrankshaft?

[Eeffinger at conestogac.on.ca (Edward Effinger)]

Hi Karl and Jim.
Thanks for your replies.
I'm still not clear on the intermediate timing mark need.
Here's what I have done.
 
- Located tdc using the mark on the flywheel
- adjusted the cam shaft sprocket mark to the cylinder head as per
manual
- adjusted the intermediate shaft to match the crankshaft
- rewired the dist cap to ensure #1 was aligned (it was out by 90deg as
a result of timing the shaft)
- it started ok, but the dist was on full retard in order to get it to
run
- I then advanced the intermediate shaft in order to advance the dist
rotation in order to have more
   play in the dist movement.  This caused me to rewire the cap by
another 90 deg).
- I think I could also just remove the dist, turn the oil pump drive
slot and reinsert the dist.
 
Conclusion.
Still don't know why the intermediate shaft has an alignment mark, as
it seems the position could be
anywhere, so long as you line up the dist to fire at #1.
 
I welcome any enlightening info.
Cheers
Ed '81S

>>> "Karl Krupke" <kkrup62@hotmail.com> 1/14/2007 12:13 PM >>>
Hi Ed,
    Really fuzzy memory of a '79 that went through a couple of belts...

seems I remember the procedure as setting all shaft timimg from the
front of 
the engine; the cam shaft mark lined up at the edge of the head, crank
& 
intermediate shaft marks adjacent to each other with another mark on
the 
'cover plate' between them.
    Sorry I can't think of what it's properly called, and my Bentley is

miles away right now... but if you visualize the two pulleys are like
this>  
O O

then the piece that has the mark on it is shaped sort of like this> )(

between the pulleys,

resulting in anarrangement sorta like this> O)(O , with a little dot
stamped 
in the middle of the )@( [note: this is all so not to scale].

    So... top, bottom, and ignition all gotta be in synch, right? Using
all 
three timing marks means crank is set for #1, cam for #1, and spark for
#1; 
all as it should be.
    Dan wrote that the "absolute position of the auxilary shaft isn't 
important" which is correct; so long as your distributor rotor is lined
up 
on #1 it's where it should be for the engine to run.
    But bear in mind that the distibutor CAN be rotated almost a full
360 
degrees (I think the vacuum advance/retard bumps into the block at some

point, so the range excludes a short arc).
    If there wasn't a mark for the aux shaft, you could possibly
(easily) 
have the aux, and thus the distributor, out of time. Which is easy
enough to 
correct, just twist the distributor to the right place, unless it's in
that 
"no go" range I mentioned...oops, right?
    Also, all the cables and vacuum lines are designed to mount with
the 
distributor within a certain range of arc.
    So, that's why there's a timing mark on the aux shaft. Hope this is

helpful.

Karl

>From: "Edward Effinger" <Eeffinger@conestogac.on.ca>
>To: "Verboten1" <verboten1@gmail.com>
>CC: scirocco-l@scirocco.org 
>Subject: Re: Timing the cam - what about the intermediate shaft 
>tocrankshaft?
>Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 15:53:48 -0500
>
>Thanks for your reply.
>I wonder then why they put a timing mark on the
crankshaft/intermediate
>shaft?
>Thanks in advance for any feedback.
>Ed '81S
>

_________________________________________________________________
Find sales, coupons, and free shipping, all in one place!  MSN Shopping

Sales & Deals 
http://shopping.msn.com/content/shp/?ctid=198,ptnrid=176,ptnrdata=200639