Re: Trying to Find Top Dead Center

Posted by Tim Cole On 2014/9/16 16:43:58

Hi Vancouver:

If you remove the oil pump from the Packard straight eight motor the distributer timing can be lost. When number one is at TDC the slot in the distributer shaft should be horizontal. If it is not, someone has lost the timing and switched to wires around to make the car run.

The best way to get TDC is to find the timing marks on the crankshaft pulley and bring the marks to zero. This is not exact due to timing chain slack, but a timing light can fix that once the motor is running.

The best way to find number one TDC from scratch is to crank the motor with a piece of paper towel stuffed into the spark plug hole. When it pops the motor is on the compression stroke. From there you can line up the timing marks and set up the distributor for the 1-6-2-5-8-3-7-4 firing order. The rotor turns counter clockwise.

Hope this helps.