NutGL
Member
Hi everyone.
I recently bought a 1971 Fiat 500 F in running condition but that was idling poorly. The engine would run very rough and you could see heavy, black smoke coming out from the exhaust all the time.
I went ahead and took the carburetor apart to find out some parts and adjustments were needed.
I placed the carburetor back on the car, I turned on the engine and I realized the exhaust black smoke disappeared completely,. I could see that the engine idled better too but it was still giving me some hiccups here and there so I thought it would be a good idea to tinker with tappet clearance, breaker points gap and correcting the timing.
I found out that according to several videos I saw, my distributor rotor was placed 180 degrees off pointing away from the engine block, so I took the whole distributor out and placed it with the rotor pointing towards the engine making sure sparkplugs wires would be swapped to the right position in the distributor cap. I found one that the lead position on the distributor cap are factory marked as cylinder 1 sparkplug corresponding to the 180 position away from the engine block, but I still decided to switch the sparkplug wires position according to what I saw from other videos.
Then, my confusion continued. I've found videos, posts and info on the Haynes and other workshop manuals mentioning two different timing marks to look for but it turns out my car has them both. I don't really know which one to use to set up my static timing. I've been using both and neither of them make my car starts again. I don't know if it's related with the way in which I placed my distributor back in the engine case or something else, but I cannot make tt run again.
I have posted two photos, one of the raised timing mark in the oil cover and another photo showing a notch over the rim of the pulley. I painted the notch over the pulley rim white for easy identification. You will see a second line to the right which corresponds to 10 degrees before TDC measuring 13mm from the factory notch.
Can you guys please tell me which mark I should be aligning with the arrow in my engine case to set up the static timing in my car? Is it the raised line in the oil cover or the notch in the pulley rim?
I recently bought a 1971 Fiat 500 F in running condition but that was idling poorly. The engine would run very rough and you could see heavy, black smoke coming out from the exhaust all the time.
I went ahead and took the carburetor apart to find out some parts and adjustments were needed.
I placed the carburetor back on the car, I turned on the engine and I realized the exhaust black smoke disappeared completely,. I could see that the engine idled better too but it was still giving me some hiccups here and there so I thought it would be a good idea to tinker with tappet clearance, breaker points gap and correcting the timing.
I found out that according to several videos I saw, my distributor rotor was placed 180 degrees off pointing away from the engine block, so I took the whole distributor out and placed it with the rotor pointing towards the engine making sure sparkplugs wires would be swapped to the right position in the distributor cap. I found one that the lead position on the distributor cap are factory marked as cylinder 1 sparkplug corresponding to the 180 position away from the engine block, but I still decided to switch the sparkplug wires position according to what I saw from other videos.
Then, my confusion continued. I've found videos, posts and info on the Haynes and other workshop manuals mentioning two different timing marks to look for but it turns out my car has them both. I don't really know which one to use to set up my static timing. I've been using both and neither of them make my car starts again. I don't know if it's related with the way in which I placed my distributor back in the engine case or something else, but I cannot make tt run again.
I have posted two photos, one of the raised timing mark in the oil cover and another photo showing a notch over the rim of the pulley. I painted the notch over the pulley rim white for easy identification. You will see a second line to the right which corresponds to 10 degrees before TDC measuring 13mm from the factory notch.
Can you guys please tell me which mark I should be aligning with the arrow in my engine case to set up the static timing in my car? Is it the raised line in the oil cover or the notch in the pulley rim?