Timing the cam - what about the intermediate shaft tocrankshaft?

[sciroccos at earthlink.net (Jim R)]

You should never have to "rewire" the cap.  There's a mark on the edge of
the distributor that indicates where the #1 wire/cap position should be.
Set up your cap so that the #1 wire is there, then install the distributor
(with the engine at TDC) so the rotor is pointing to this mark (very
important).

You can make sure you position the distributor so that there's enough room
to adjust it in either direction.  (hint: you can reposition the tang in the
dist hole if needed; it's just a drive for the oil pump and has nothing to
do with the timing.

Jim

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Edward Effinger [mailto:Eeffinger@conestogac.on.ca]
>Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 10:46 AM
>To: verboten1@gmail.com; Karl Krupke
>Cc: scirocco-l@scirocco.org
>Subject: Re: Timing the cam - what about the intermediate shaft
>tocrankshaft?
>
>
>Hi Karl and Jim.
>Thanks for your replies.
>I'm still not clear on the intermediate timing mark need.
>Here's what I have done.
>
>- Located tdc using the mark on the flywheel
>- adjusted the cam shaft sprocket mark to the cylinder head as per
>manual
>- adjusted the intermediate shaft to match the crankshaft
>- rewired the dist cap to ensure #1 was aligned (it was out by 90deg as
>a result of timing the shaft)
>- it started ok, but the dist was on full retard in order to get it to
>run
>- I then advanced the intermediate shaft in order to advance the dist
>rotation in order to have more
>   play in the dist movement.  This caused me to rewire the cap by
>another 90 deg).
>- I think I could also just remove the dist, turn the oil pump drive
>slot and reinsert the dist.
>
>Conclusion.
>Still don't know why the intermediate shaft has an alignment mark, as
>it seems the position could be
>anywhere, so long as you line up the dist to fire at #1.
>
>I welcome any enlightening info.
>Cheers
>Ed '81S
>