[AT] When Lost How do You Find It

[Doug Tallman]

Dudley, can you get a thin screwdriver or piece of stiff wire down the 
spark plug hole and touch the top of the piston. If you can, it would be 
easy to find TDC. Put your finger on the hole and feel for compression 
and then dial it in from the top of the piston. If you have to turn the 
engine opposite of rotation, go farther than you need to and bring it 
back in the direction of rotation to take the slack out of the gear 
train. Doug T

drupert at seanet.com wrote:
>> A friend/neighbor has a Ferguson 35 with a Loader hung on it.  Friday he
>>     
> called saying it just "quit" on him after running fine since the day he
> got it which has been quite a few years ago now.  I might add he's done
> nothing tune up wise on it.  Anyhow, I went over to see what I could do.
>  It appeared that good looking gas ran out of the Carb Bowl Drain when
> opened so gas didn't appear to be the problem.  I twisted my arm up in a
> pretzel and got the end of it to the Distributor and removed the Cap -
> there was definitely a problem there.  I decided it would be easier to
> take the Distributor out and repair it at home - I carefully left marks
> to aid in the reinstallation.
>
> Unfortunately, when I reinstalled the Distributor Saturday I failed to get
> the gear on the bottom properly mated with its' driving Gear on the Cam
> Shaft and I turned the engine over a couple of times before realizing
> this.  At this point I started getting the feeling that I was falling into
> a Big Black Hole.  This engine does not have Timing Marks on the Crank
> Pulley but rather has (or is supposed to have) them on the front of the
> Flywheel.  An Access Hole is provided in the front of the Bell Housing
> below the Starter to view these marks.  Access to this Hole required I now
> twist my entire body into a pretzel, crawl up in-between the Loader Frame
> and Tractor and, with a flashlight, peer back into this Hole with the
> owner running the Starter.  After three complete revolutions of the
> Flywheel no Timing Marks were observed.
>
> I now knew for sure I was in a Black Hole and was starting to wonder is
> there a way out ... how do you find Top Dead Center of say the Number 1
> Cylinder when you have no reference marks to go by?  My number one son
> came over this evening and we discussed it - or rather he told me what to
> do.  He said that since we could get air out to the tractor to blow the
> numbers  2/3 down (thus driving 1 & 4 up) and mark the Crank Pulley and
> Timing Cover.  Next, blow number 1 down noting which direction the engine
> rotates... if it rotates backwards then number 1 had not reached TDC but
> if it rotates forward then it had passed TDC.  Next, blow 2/3 down again
> (which drives 1 & 4 back up), then by hand rotate the engine slightly
> forward (if it had previously rotated backwards) or slightly backwards (if
> it had previously rotated forwards) and put a second mark on the Pulley. 
> By this method of successive approximation he thought you could zero in on
> TDC.
>
> I would like to know if any of you have tried this method or know why it
> won't work or know of a better method.  If the weather is decent this
> afternoon (the tractor is outside) we will be  back at  it.
>
> Thanks  -
> Dudley
> Snohomish, Washington
>
>
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