my kind of timing

[Ikebaddog]

Good evening fellas, hope you are all well.....as the title suggests, I'm going to try and get the ignition timing on my series 3 sorted, problem is, I'm fat, got a replacement hip and waiting for another and can't fit under the car very well, so my plan is to get 1A to TDC 9 using a dti, then mark the pulley in a place that normal fat blokes can see, I reckon I can roughly guess 20 - 10 BTDC and go from there, any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated. Happy Easter

[MarekH]

I simply put the 1a cylinder to tdc and then fitted an old xjs timing mark onto one of the water pump bolts at about 10 o'clock. I then painted the pulley with a differently coloured line against the new vernier.

kind regards
Marek

[Ikebaddog]

Brilliant, cheers MarekH, as always, top man.

[vee12eman]

Two things, first a question for Marek, do you have a source for the old timing mark from an XJS? They are not common down here and I wondered if you have a part number?
As an alternative solution, try mounting a mirror to see the timing marks from above. I think these photos will help you see how I made it work. It is clearer than the picture shows once the strobe light is directed at it, which is done from above.







An alternative is to use a flexible camera endoscope, designed to look inside box sections etc and now available to fit to a phone. I haven’t tried this but I have heard that others have had success. I may try this out myself but the mirror works for me.


Sorry if I am late to the party but I hope this helps.