Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

Rdover · Joined: 26 Nov 2007 Posts: 413

I always get horribly confused when trying to figure out which way is advance or retard.

Am I right in saying:

Advance = the spark happens earlier in the cycle
Retard = the spark happens later in the cycle

When hand cranking a manual advance engine one should fully retard the ignition then advance it.

When setting the timing one should advance the ignition until it is almost trying to break your wrist as you crank then retard slightly.

As I have a mag/coil conversion, the car has a normal distributor with a clockwise rotating rotor arm. Which way should I turn the dizzy to advance it?

Silly I know, but it is one of these things that I seem unable to remember!
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Richard

peter scott · Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 7118 Location: Edinburgh

Kelsham · Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 4:46 pm Post subject:

You want the spark to occur earlie,r so anti clockwise with a rotor arm going in a clockwise direction.

Normally a basic setting is to have the contact breaker just opening at top dead centre. The automatic advance built into the distributor should take care of the ignition as the engine speeds up.

This is usually good enough to get running. Obviously set the points gap first.

Regards Kels.

Rdover · Joined: 26 Nov 2007 Posts: 413

Thanks for that

After a significant help from fellow VCC members this afternoon I'm pleased to say we got the points sorted and the timing much closer to ideal and the car is running a whole lot better but, and this is a big but, it seems that I should not be able to turn the engine over quite so easily when starting. The evidence points to broken or seized piston rings if not something worse!

Plan of campaign is to get the cylinder pots off the car and the whole shebang dropped into a local specialist to see if it is just the rings or perhaps something more.

The car is a 2.2litre and should certainly drive happily in 4th gear uphill and down dale instead of struggling to climb in 2nd!

I'm getting very close to having it mechanically perfect - there is only one way to get these ancients sorted and that is to drive it until something breaks/fails, fix it and drive it again until nothing else breaks! It's part of the fun.
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Richard

Kelsham · Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 5:51 pm Post subject:

Why not try a compression test first? what engine is it? more information needed.

Kels.

Rdover · Joined: 26 Nov 2007 Posts: 413

Of course, I forgot to mention that was part of the plan but well reminded
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Richard