Still at war with the fhead

I just moved out of town and now need this jeep for a daily driver to commute to work. I have learned and immense amount from this forum, but still cannot get the jeep moving.

Here is what is new

Before it stopped working-
gas tank
fuel pump
tuned
running fine

after it stopped running
new solex carb
new coil
new condensor
new points


I set the dwell today to .42
got the #1 to tdc of compression stroke
set the #1 then #3 then #4 then #2 going counterclockwise
sprayed starter, turned it over and nothing

My question is:

at tdc should the rotor be at 5 o'clock or 9 o'clock with my timing marks lined up?

What am I missing?

thanks for your help

 

I would say 5. BUT, be sure thats where your #1 plug wire is. Here a liitle bit of further info on timing the f-head. http://www.film.queensu.ca/cj3b/Tech/DistributorInstall.html All may not apply if you haven't pulled the dist, but it hopefully will help. Do you have good spark on a new plug?

 

Yep, you need to check whether you have spark at all. Even if the engine is wildly out of time (ie distributor is in wrong), the motor will still bark and pop if you try to start it - if you have fuel and spark. Does the rotor turn and the points open and close when you crank the engine? Do you have power to the coil?

 

The electronics involved in getting the engine running are very basic. If your still not getting a spark you can start bypassing your current wiring until you have isolated the problem. Here's a diagram I drew up when I did my test stand. You may want to get a couple switches, wire it up like this and ground everything off the engine just to see if you can get it running.

 

Mine turned out to be at 11 o'clock.
That is where Number 1 plug wire runs from.
Timing mark should be 5 degrees BTC +/- 1 degree.
you may or may not need a ballast resistor. Your new coil may require one.
take a wire and put an alligator clip on each end, connect one to the positive of the battery and the other to the positive of the coil. Negative of the coil goes to the points lead of the distributor.
try to start it. if it runs with the jumper wire, then the problem is somewhere upstream from there. Ignition switch, wiring to and from the switch to the coil and the battery.
The distributor needs to ground to the block. Do the points close all the way?

Do you have fuel in the bowl? pour a gascan cap full of gas down the throat of the carb and try it. if it fires now you may not be getting fuel to the carb from the pump or fuel to the pump from the tank. I have a clear fuel filter in the line before my pump and can see if I have fuel going to the pump.

I hope this stuff helps.:hurrican:

 

I believe that the engine began having troubles with a combination of old worn points and trouble getting my original carter tuned. Turned out today that the new points were good and the dwell dead on, but I had the distributor 180 out. I knew this was possible, and have tried it both ways, but, not with the points switched. Today was the day, I guess, got it up and running, and it seems as good as ever.

Thanks for all of your help and information.

Ben

 

Easy to do. The rotor shaft will only go in one way, but the body can be 180 degrees out.

Simply switching the spark plug leads from 12 to 6 , and 9 to 3 will take care of that .

If you put the adjusting arm with two slots on upside down then you end up with the oil cup on the opposite side from where it should be ( and also unusable, because the cup points straight out from the block instead of straight up, as it should be).

If the PO had the oil pump out for some reason and then re-indexed it wrong then the rotor will be positioned 180 out.

I have no timing indicators on my engine, so I had to make them. TDC is easy, trying to just go 5 degrees BTDC is harder, but can be done. Evidently, the PO didn't think the indicators were important, and left them off!

 

That is it exactly, I may say more accurately that the mounting plate was flipped, therefor making the range of movement to achieve timing, not possible. The shaft was correct, the distributor kind of correct, just rotated to fit into the mounting plate.