Setting timing on 302

[Allan A]

Anyone have experience doing this in Danville? We think mine needs to be changed and I don't have tool or experience.

Thank you in advance.

[bobcowan]

It's really not rocket surgery. Pretty basic procedure. You can borrow a timing light from Autozone for free, and it comes with instructions. If you provide some engine information we give you some general guidelines on what settings you should shoot for.

[1795]

While it is not rocket science and you can probably do it, make sure that if you find that it does need to be adjusted that you barely loosen the retaining nut on the distributor so that it turns with some minor resistance. If you loosen the retaining nut too far and have not done this before, it is quite easy to severely advance or retard the spark and then it becomes more of a pain finding TDC. Made that mistake the first time I tried to set the timing on an engine and had to pull the valve cover and rotate engine to find TDC and then re-set. a quick safety measure is to take a marker and draw a line on the manifold and base of the distributor prior to making any changes, then if you mess it up you can rotate the distributor back to the original setting and start over. If you do re-set the timing, take a different color marker and draw another line after tightening things down. You can use this as reference point and it also will help you figure things out if you start having timing related problems again. If the lines do not match up, you know that the distributor has moved and that might mean that you have to move it back to that setting and then tighten the retaining nut a little firmer than previously. It could also point to other problems with the gear mesh between the distributor and he cam shaft....

[Allan A]

Thank you, I realize this but it always helps to have someone who makes light work of this stuff.