Inliners International Forums General Discussion Engines 292 running rough

It is the lower thermostat housing and you can change the
fitting( hose fitting) no need to buy a new housing if you don't have to.

Great. I'll see if I can find a place to buy the fittings from. What type of store should I look at?

I was able to find a dual groove pulley. I had to go to 3 stores, but I picked one up for $12. The alternator belt alignment looks good now. The pulley for the fan is a little off, but I'll be using a different pulley for the fan anyways, once it is installed in the nova.

Any part house Or high performance shop should have then they are the same as any SB.( used on water pump Or on the intake) for
the heater hoses.

Folks;
I am going to echo Wills remarks. JOIN INLINERS!!!, There are several Inline Members living in y'alls areas, and I GUARANTEE, when you get your membership roster and phone one of these Members you'll be close to solving your problems. If not a "done deal" when you ask for help, I'll be surprised. That your problems are hard to visualize, and solve from a distance is understandable. JOIN Inliners International, 28 of the best bucks you'll ever spend and you'll make lifetime friends!
SOB

I plan on joining soon. Finances are really tight with my upcoming honeymoon/wedding

Here's an update:

after I thought the problems were taken care of, I ended up selling the truck to a friend. I sold it on the condition that I would get the engine.

Before pulling it last weekend, we fired it up to run some radiator flush through the cooling system. After fooling with it for 30 minutes and not being able to get it started (it had been sitting for about 6 months). I noticed that the distributor was nut was loose, so I decided to put a timing light on it.

The timing mark wasn't where it is supposed, and when it was close to where it needed to be, it sounded worse than when it was way off. After messing with it, and 'ignoring' the timing mark on the balancer, we got it running.

I got the engine out of the truck and into my garage. I took a look a the balancer - the rubber between the between the two 'rings' on the front of it looks squished out in a couple of spots. I checked TDC - the mark looks to be 20 or 30 degrees off.

Is it possible that this balancer is junk? The engine probably has less than 20 miles since the balancer was installed!

I'll post some pics later.

it probably has a mismatch with the timing cover by model year. in different production years the timing tab or the mark would be in different locations. tom

The think is, it was lined up at one point, when I installed the balancer.

From what I can tell, it's off by 93 degrees!
Diameter of balancer - 21.25"
Mark is 5.5" off
21.25/360 degrees x 5.5 = 93 degrees.

the think is = the thing is (why can't I edit my post?)

ussually the mark is lined up with the crank key way. tom

Here are the pics. I had a friend come over who knows more about engines than I do. He's saying that the 'new' mark is where TDC is:





Rock auto has agreed to replace the balancer with a Dorman (same as above) or Airtex unit. Any thoughts on this?

They just emailed me to let me know it is an ATP unit, not Airtex. Which one should I take?

So is the concensus that the outer ring has slipped or the TDC mark incorrectly positioned on the OD. Im guessing it is a remanufactured one.

I think it has slipped, because I'm pretty sure it lined up correctly when I installed it, other wise I probably never would have gotten the engine running decently.

I haven't pulled the bolt off. When I have a chance, I'll see if the keyway is still lined up with the timing mark.

that is what i would do. check the mark.

The keyway and the original timing mark on the balancer are not lined up.

The keyway is close to where I marked the balancer.


which brand balancer should I get - Dorman or ATP?

There has been a considerable amount of good help in this thread and there have been a lot of assumptions. The first major assumption is the motor was built properly with the correct parts. From what has gone on, my first guess would be the balancer and timing cover are mismatched, but it needs to be verified.

The balancer is apparently coming off anyway, so once again remove the timing cover. If you can see piston #1 through the spark plug opening great; if not get a bolt in piston stop and confirm TDC. Check the timing gears to make sure they align.
Put the cover back on and slip the balancer on and check to see if the balancer and 0 on the cover line up. If they do, it is one issue that can be eliminated. If not mark the cover where it lines up to 0 and make a new pointer. You can buy a pretty chrome one at a parts house or even drill a hole and use a nail tack welded in as a pointer.

Once you know the mechanical timing is right, you can then recheck the valve clearances, take the distributor to an old time shop that has a distributor machine to make sure it is all good, set the timing, make sure you have good fuel and see what happens. It is difficult debugging over the web , but with the good ideas and differing thoughts going back to the basics may make sense.

Best of luck!!!

Here's one other thought. Once upon a time I had a '64 Nova that was my daily driver, and one day I was driving home after work and it just stopped running. I coasted to a stop on the side of the road and did all the normal tests you do (is it getting air, fuel, and spark?), and everything seemed to be working, but the engine wouldn't even try to fire. So I pulled the distributor cap to check the points. The points were fine, but with the crank at tdc on #1 cylinder, the distributor rotor was pointing at the #4 spark plug wire instead of the #1 wire. Not good. So I pulled the distributor, and lo and behold, the roll pin holding the distributor drive gear in place was mostly gone. There were a few scraps of it left, so friction was the main thing holding the gear in place, and it had slipped about 120 degrees, which caused the engine to stop running. You might want to take a look at the drive gear on your dizzy and make sure it's in good shape along with the roll pin holding it in place on the shaft.

Thanks for the help guys. Rock Auto is going to replace the balancer for the price of shipping, so I am going to take them up on their offer. After I get it back, I'll look into the things you've mentioned above.

I am pretty sure that the balancer and cover matched when I put new balancer on. Also look at the distance between the line on the let and the line on the right. IF the #1 piston is at TDC when the line on the left lines up with '0', think about where that puts the original timing mark - I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to see that mark unless you're underneath the car.

any suggestions? does it matter?

Typically, the outer rings on balancers don't slip without some reason, usually after years of oil saturation and deterioration and cracking of the rubber. The balancer you show in the photo looks to be in good shape as far as the rubber is concerned, that would make me think it is some sort of quality control issue or manufacturing defect that caused the ring to slip, so I would select another brand different from the one shown, just to make sure you didn't get another potentially bad one. Im not that familiar with the OEM style replacement ones enough to recommend a brand. You might try to google Dorman or ATP and see if there are any blogs or forums discussing them as far as problems, that might give you some guidance as to choosing one over the other.

The ones that I've seen that we know slipped (motor won't run with the marks aligned, but seems OK if you tune it "by ear" and check for pinging - including my 250), all look worse than that (more rubber, more out from only 1 side, both), but this obviously only catches them when they're toast. If you can rotate it by hand (strap wrench; I use a seat belt), or wiggle it front to back, it's gone.
I know nothing about any aftermarket except that NAPA probably doesn't carry anything too bad.
It's important that this be fixed, because the harmonics occur in narrow RPM ranges, and cruising in exactly that spot for an hour might throw the ring right off (into the belt, blah), and certainly not protect the engine.

I think I'll go with the ATP unit. I didn't really want the Dorman one again b/c of the reasons stated by CNC-Dude.

I've lost a couple on my 292. One flew off while I was driving down the freeway. One dropped to the ground when I started the motor. I have had ones on other cars slip and was unable to set the timing. That includes a Corvair that also has belt grooves in the dampener. Every one had dried, cracked rubber with small or even large pieces missing.
Pull the nut and large washer off. With the engine at what you believe to be TDC, the keyway in the pulley should be straight up. The keyway should line up with one of the three bolt holes in the hub of the dampener. You can use a mirror to look or use your camera on MACRO setting, which looks like you have been using.

You didn't loose the key when you put the dampener on did you?

I may have another dampener ring come loose, but I will never have one fall off again. It now has the AC pulley bolted to the front, using the three hub bolt holes. That will trap the ring and the worst that can happen is that it will chew up the gear cover.

Here a quick update:

I sent the old balancer back to RockAuto and a new one is in the mail (ATP untit).

When I pulled the timing cover off, this is what I saw. I had the engine turned to where I though TDC was:


not perfect, but pretty close I'd say.

>>>engine turned to where I though TDC was<<<

NO!!!

It will have both valves closed, but on the overlap between Ex closing and In opening.
You need TDC on the compression stroke and that ain't it.
Two years ago when this thread started, you could have said the cam was 180 deg out. You could pull the cam out a little and turn it 180 deg. BUT!! Why not just turn the crank 360 deg or one full turn. If the two marks line up, the only thing that can be 180 deg out is your thinking.

Please explain to me how you can tell that from the photo.

Lost me on that one also!

When the timing marks are aligned, as shown in the picture, the piston is at TDC,true, but in reference to camshaft/crank phasing, the engine is in overlap, where as mentioned, the valves are partially opened/closing. If you put the distributor in the engine with the timing marks aligned as shown,and put the rotor at #1 terminal, it will be 180 degrees out of time. For the engine to be in time, you will either need to rotate the engine one complete revolution back around to TDC,the dot on the crank gear will still be pointing up like shown, but the cam gear dot will be at the 12:00 position instead of the 6:00 position as shown, then install the distributor pointing at #1. It is kinda' misleading to think that when the gears are dot to dot, the engine is at the #1 firing position, but this is done mostly to assure the timing gears or chains are aligned more accurately. It would be real easy to get the gears misaligned if you tried to index the gears with the cam gear at the 12:00 position and the crank gear at the 12:00 position as well, instead of closer together as shown in the picture. From the picture, it looks as if the cam/crank are in time as they should be, as long as the piston is truly at TDC as the dot on the crank gear seems to indicate. Take your #1 spark plug out and rotate the engine gently with your finger over the spark plug hole, as the piston come back up toward TDC, you will feel the piston start to push air out against your finger. Now notice the alignment marks on your cam/crank gears, they should both be at the 12:00 position, now look at your rotor, if it isn't pointing at #1 on your distributor cap, thats your problem. Make it point at #1 and you will be good to go, provided you have determined the outer ring on your balancer is accurately showing your TDC reference, as you were questioning earlier....

CNC-Dude,

Thanks for the detailed explanation. If I am following what your saying, at firing TDC, it should look like this?

Note: the engine will not run rough with the timing set to fire on overlap, it cannot run at all. Every event is 1 full crank rotation out: the exhaust valve is open during the compression stroke (leading to ignition).

Yes sir, that would be the point at which both valves are completely closed, the #1 piston is at TDC, and #1 terminal on the distributor cap has the rotor shooting fire at it....

Thanks for the help guys.

Panic is right, I think at this point it should be verified that the balancer/timing cover TDC marks match up,and that the piston TDC corresponds with those as well. Might need to get a degree wheel and a piston stop to make sure.

I agree. I don't think that the mark on the balancer is going to line up with the timing mark.

I'm not sure where I saw it, but I remember a thread where someone made a piston stop from an old spark plug.

I see two sizes of piston stops online - 14mm and 18mm. Does anyone know which one I need?

CNC-Dude is correct.
Your 6:00 and 12:00 has made me a little dizzy from holding my head sideways. Ha
Without already knowing that when the gear marks are together, this engine is at TDC/exhaust stroke, there is another way to tell.
If you use the bottom of the block as the horizontal reference, the crank key is at 12:00 oclock when the #1 crank journal is up and the piston at the top of the bore. Outside the view in the picture, the cam gear, key slot should be at about 1:00 oclock, again referencing the block. If you have an old cam and hold it with the key at 1:00, you will see that the #1 In and #1 Ex cam lobes are on either side of the virtical. It's easy to see that rotating the cam either way would move the lifters up.

There was an error earlier in this thread. The crank/dampener key slot DOES NOT line up with the dampener timing mark. The crank key slot is straight up no matter where the timing tab is. The same slot also indexes the crank gear.

Using a positive stop to find an accurate TDC is good, but you need the timing cover and balancer in place. I suggest getting the dist installed properly from where you are now. I also suggest readjusting the valves, if you have doubts about TDC location at the time you did it before.

>>I see two sizes of piston stops online - 14mm and 18mm. Does anyone know which one I need?<<

You tell us. My original head had the old larger, plugs with a gasket. The head on there now uses small tapered seat plugs.

IIRC the head uses the ones with the gaskets.

I will adjust the valves. Hopefully they were adjusted properly the first time and nothing got messed up.

Another shining example of how useful this forum is, at least to me. I never knew, or didn't remember that with the dots lined up the cycle was in overlap. In my several engine rebuilds over a lot of years I always just set the gears properly and then never thought about them again, just put the #1 piston on the compression stroke and then used the timing mark to establish tdc. Good thing I never had an erroneous timing mark or I would have been a might confussed! Thanks All.