i went in my cold garage today and I got it apart enuf to take some pictures of what it looks like .... ( i forgot to put that tming " tab " back on and so had to take it apart to put it on so we could check the timing not sure if it helps but it was suggested itming marks compared to camshaft .... not once did the camshaft top out while crank pully was on 15 deg mark ( on either side of T i assume that's what T on the pulley means ... ... the part that confused me tho i was expecting just one set of marks .. but it was on either side of T so i took pictures on both side ...sadly niether lines up ... just fyi the sequence of the pics is as follows ..... the crank position then what the cam position on cyl 1 was .... the only time it was @ top was in middle of nowhere as u can see...... yet it ran ... let me know what u think


the images can also be found @ this link on my work site

http://oilfielddirectory.com/carpics

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I've put some of your words in BOLD , when you say this are you talking about the pointer that is attached to the timing case cover and points too or indicates the degree markings on the harmonic balancer? The little cut off triangle metal piece? Is that the part you removed when you took the timing case cover off originally, you forgot to reinstall it when you put things back together originally, and today when you started trying to do something realized it was missing and today reinstalled it?

The harmonic balancer it marked in degrees both before and after TOP DEAD CENTER that is why there are two scales.

Set the harmonic balancer at zero and check where the cam timing refferance marks are then. The injection pump is timed at the fifteen degree position but the cam at the zero position.

Remember the lobes of the cams first cylinder must be pointing generally upward at perhaps a forty five degree angle. If they are pointing downward the cam refferance marks will be way off .So you will have to turn the crank one full turn back to the harmonic dampers zero mark.

Just go slow and it will mentally all fall into place. This is caused by the crank having to turn twice for the cam to turn once if you think about the four stroke engine cycle.

In your case the tang in the injection port might have been easier but something will come of it the way you are doing it. Do not get overly concerned at this time. Plus try not to get frustrated. Look at the upside as well. There should be no parts to buy basically to get this corrected if it is found the timing is off. If you have a chance and the time look up the otto four stroke engine theory on the net if you do not understand it. It makes life a lot easier if you do.

We live in a five bedroom igloo on the east coast of Canada. May as well serve the steriotype. The southerners love it.

Where are you that it is presently 20 degrees below? We just got colder reciently but no where near that. I will try to periodically get back to your thread as much as possible. Tomorrow is unpredictable though as the wife has many other things for me to deal with. .Gotta tune up the dog team and go get a christmas tree for one. We agreed many years ago to always go cut our own christmas tree down. I guess that I am a sucker for punishment but an agreement is an agreement.

We agreed to do this long ago until we were eventually physically incapable of doing it..I have fortunatly since learnt to examine the fine print in intermarital relationship agreements but too late for that one.

[QUOTE=Mark Rapier;3065763]I've put some of your words in BOLD , when you say this are you talking about the pointer that is attached to the timing case cover and points too or indicates the degree markings on the harmonic balancer? The little cut off triangle metal piece? Is that the part you removed when you took the timing case cover off originally, you forgot to reinstall it when you put things back together originally, and today when you started trying to do something realized it was missing and today reinstalled it?


Yep ... that's the piece i'm talking about ... i forgot to re-install it when i put it back together

sounds like you need heat in your garage...

__________________
John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 560SL convertible
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
2005 Dodge Sprinter 2500 158"WB
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

I've got heat in mine, but no room to pull any project cars IN the garage to take advantage of the heat...

__________________
John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 560SL convertible
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
2005 Dodge Sprinter 2500 158"WB
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

here you go guys ... i managed to fine the tab in IP and center it as best i could and take a picture of where the marker was pointing on the crank ... just keep in mind i dont know how accurate that " mark " is since that was re-installed ( but tried to center it as best possible .... let me know what u think and where to go from here

thanks in advance .....

Scott

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I dialed 603 cam timing marks into the archives. Under a post called om603 timing chain screwup I found a photographic indicator of the cam timing marks on your 603 type engine.

On many of the other threads contained in that segment of the archives you will find other better pictures and descriptions as well I believe. Time to dive into the archives for you. There is a lot of information posted as so many did not grasp the timing system of this engine and the questions of posters and the answers should help you as well.

As for the timing pointer for the harmonic balancer. You have cleaned the case well enough that there is no indication of where it was exactly before removal. I was thinking it might be worthwhile to remove it and examine it for any indications of where the bolt that held it on may have left a mark on the pointer slot itself . You thought the overall range of the pointer slot was either five degrees each side of centre or was that five degrees total movement of its total slot capacity? From one side to the other. Or is it even worse if the pointer can rotate somewhat as well as just slide sideways? Anyways there is no way to trust that form of approach.

Now that it looks pretty certain the timing is off. Although the pointer may be giving a false indication. The pointer has to be restored to indicate top dead centre properly and accuratly as a previous poster pointed out.

There are two ways at least to do this. A dial gauge with the injector and pre chamber removed is the factory recomendation. This means you have to make or get your hands on a pre chamber puller and a dial gauge if you do not have one.

Or remove the number one cylinder injector and fill the cylinder with engine oil. Say with the engine perhaps about 20 degrees off of your currently indicated top dead centre. At this point there is no concern on the direction you rotate the engine basically. So you could start with where you are now. As you rotate the piston upward the oil will spill out the injector hole. At some point it will stop. Look at your harmonic balancer mark then. Mentaly record or write down the indicators position. Now move the engine further the same direction you where going so the oil level drops a little. Add a little more oil. Then turn the engine in the other direction until the oil is back up to the top of the injector bore and has stopped spilling out. Read the harmonic balancer again. If it is the same as it was when you went the first way . Loosen the timing marker and set it to top dead centre. The two readings on the harmonic balancer may not be identical so you will split the degree differance to locate the pointer. This can be caused by some slop and at the apex of the crankshaft arc there is some crank movement with little to no piston movement. Same issue using a dial gauge approach by the way. It just takes a little care to get this right. Double checking it by doing the proceedure twice is also wise.

You want to be pretty observant and have good lighting to estimate when the oil has stopped flowing. With a little luck and care you will have the true top dead centre point established. If this is beyond your ablities or there arrise some unseen issues that you cannot work around then you are going to have to do this the harder way. Have rags available to wipe off the oil from the surface it is flowing on to see when it truly just stops flowing.

I can be very fussy for example sometimes. I would take my compression tester adaptor and put on a small diameter plastic tube so I could watch the oil rise in the tube and mark the tube with a piece of tape. The much smaller diameter of the plastic tube makes determination of when it stops spilling. Or in the case of the tube either stops spilling out of it or rising in the tube. An even more accurate approach. This whole proceedure can only be done easily on the power stroke that you are on now.On the other stroke you might have oil escaping through the valves remember.

Done carefully it is going to be very adaquate for finding true top dead centre. Sorry to do this to you but until you got going did not want to overcomplicate things.

As I warned earlier you are not probably going to have to spend money but you are in for some labour. You can do this in my opinion. Your self confidence will build as you move along as well. Most members including myself are not working mechanics. So when we started repairing our own cars knew little at one time. We all have to keep learning it seems..

first of all dont sweat it about the your "supposed" long winded answer I LIKE it ... details are good

just to answer your questions ...YES i did find that pic of timing cam timing marks ..... what i'm confused about is " is that the exact spot they are supposed to be lined up @ ...the top and IF so, when ? ....

in otherwords ... i'm assuming when the piston is @ TDC and then u want me to adjust the timing mark pointer on the crank pulley to the Td mark ... is that correct ... and btw i love your idea with the tube / hose to figure out TDC ... that's great idea i'm gonna try that .... sat... i'm sure i can do that np ...

and secondly you made a good point on doing it only on power stroke .... obv want to make sure it's on PS only .. dont want to just keep pouring oil in the cylinder un-necessarily ...

catch you later ... thanks for all the great advice couldnt have done it without all the excellent help and tips ...

thanks Scott

First of all at this point checking timing etc should be put aside. Concentration is required to get the timing pointer for the harmonic balance back wher it should be.

Otherwise. cam marks line up every two revolutions of the crankshaft. Or on the power stroke if you wish. At the top dead centre stroke of the first cylinders piston. Or zero on the harmonic balancer once the indicator pointer is accuratly located again in your case.

If the chain is stretched a little the cam marks will be slightly off.Perhaps the width of the indicator marks. You must turn the engine in it's normal rotation to get rid of any potential chain slop that could occur. If turning the engine backwards for this check it is not the normal operational mode. Under power that chain is stretched very tight on the traction side.

By the time this is over we may have a love hate relationship going. If the timing is off and I still suspect it is. If it were my car That timing chain would get a link by link inspection.

The reason is there is a tang just below the bottom of the chain on the bottom sprocket to prevent it getting out of time with a loose chain. If it jammed up and jumped time down there quite some forces may have been involved. Hence the chain inspection.

First things first things though. Pointer recalibration for top dead centre and rechecking the timing after. Chain inspection can be accomplished at the same time the cam and injection pump timing checks are underway.

The proof it should be done is if it is found that both the cam and injection pump timing are off a crank tooth. That is going to equate to the cam and injection pump being off two teeth each to correct. It cannot be corrrected on the very bottom sprocket in my opinion. Depends still on what the harmonic balancer readings etc are going to be though.

Just remember how lucky you are to have the engine with the hydralic lifters as you go along. On the 617 last series engines I suspect valve train damage would have resulted if the cam where two teeth off.

You have already eliminated the possibility of the cam or injection pump being on the wrong stroke. This was not really a possibility anyways. Have a good weekend and I hope it warms up for you. Hard to think and function while freezing your ass off working on a car.

Minus twenty C is about minus twenty F for our american members. At a few temperatures C and F readings are simular. Not many places on the temperature scale are they simualr though.

i'm back from the igloo / garage with more updates .... i went and did the TDC test , hopefully someone can help me figure this out ...i'm baffled, i'm not quite sure how to explain it properly the issue i'm facing so pls humor me i took the # 1 injector out and found TDC using barry123 liquid which works pretty cool actually and accurately imo ) and then matched the pointer on the crank to TDC / 0 deg and btw the mark on the cam shaft gear are dead on ... amazingly enuf and finally got a correct reading of between 20 & 30 or so .... WHEN the tang on the IP port is approx in the middle ....

sorry to be soooooo vague but i cant help it ..... and now dont know what to make of it .... there is so much " play " when taking the readings on the crank after trying to have the tang in the center of the port what i mean by " play " ( for lack of a better word ) is this ...

1st i tried to set tang in middle of port / spyhole .... but that shows a reading on crank of approx 30 plus degrees ATDC , so just for fun i try to move the crank back to where it'supposed to be ( 15 deg ) to see where the tang will appear "now " and becuz of apparent slack in the " system " chain or ip or ???? it doesnt take much movement on the crank to get back to where it's supposed to be ( 15 AFTDC ) ( in otherwords tooooo the tang barley moved compared to 15 or so degree move on crank persay ... and the tang in the ip had to the outer edge of the port .....

so what is the real reading ... i dont know ... and if that reading is correct ( since everything else seems to be lined fine ) how could the ip be out 15 or more degrees .... hmmmmmm what to do now ???


ps ... just a thought imo there seems to be too much room for " play " interpretation in the numbers ..... it obviously needs the timing reset ... but how much and how to do it ???

There is always inherent slop in the chain system to pick up when trying to back the engine up. So your two differant tang readings occuring in my opinion are normal. You are 15 degrees later than you should be on the injection pump if you saw thirty atdc on the balancer when rotating the engine in the right direction so it should be corrected. To double check this you just continue to roll the engine over two more times. Reversing the engine rotation again is counter productive.

Since the important thing here is to get the car fixed. Members should know we talked on the phone.

The poster used the vertical oil containment tube method I mentioned for finding top dead centre. Coming at tdc from both directions just gave him about an eighth of an inch differance on the balancer So I assume he split the differance and set the pointer there.

The injector pump timing may not have jumped in my opinion now I tend to believe. This based on him telling me the car had run smooth and quiet but gutless before this problem occured. It is my suspicion that the injection pump may have been mistimed since he aquired the car. Or it may be a just possibility is a better thought,

So my opinion and I would like to see others with much more experience than myself involved in this as the injection pump wil have to be retimed but may or may not fix his issues.

It is just a hard go for me to understand if and how that pump went out of time. The prior gutless performance could have just been the typical blocked up alda signal and the pump chain really has jumped somehow is still on the table though I guess.

Again I would like to see a lot of participation because my suspicion is this one could become interesting.

All I know is the injection pump appears to be very late in the cycle. Enough to cause all his symptoms goes beyod my limited knowledge. I never owned or worked on a 603 engine. But guess they are a little more sensitive than my older diesel boat anchors.

I think the poster was suprised when telling him the 603 engined cars can be pretty peppy for an old diesel. Personally I want to see him experience that factor as well.

Once this guy gets motavated it seems he follows through. I cannot see his mechanical advance unit being involved or the degrees the engine is out would indicate lower ATDC numbers not higher if anything. Very good and more than adaquate descriptions of retiming the injection pump are also in the archives. These descriptions are for people that have never retimed a 603 injection pump before and are step by step.

My limited amount of knowledge may be topping out about now. Falling back a little to the chain (no pun intended) of events does indicate it has to be almost something in the general area inpacted where he was working though at the same time. So I guess we wil have to wait to see what the retimed injection pump produces first.

I have suggested he either fabricate a locking blade for the injection pump tang or get into the archives to find a method someone else has used to make one as there is not a factory type one close to his location. I did not mention that we have a tool rental section though as well and that was neglectful.

If I am missing something or even if not some comments on what other members think might help.

after talking ot barry on the phone ... again , sooooooooo helpful, i appreciate ibecuz some things are better able to explain on phone .... anyway, i gave it some thought about " way to get proper readings " YES ... it makes sense to me NOW doooooooooh on why NOT to reverse the direction ... will give false readings becuz of slack in the chain ... why didnt i think of that ... i'll try again today ...and btw while doing my research HERE i came across a good description on how to adjust IP WITHOUT unbolting it ... kinda novel ( if it works )

For the IP, cut up a soda can for a strip of aluminum to slide between the sprocket and chain. Turn the IP to the desired position and reset the chain. Obviously done in separate steps since the cam is set at TDC and the IP is set at 15*ATDC.


here is link 87 TDT black smoke all the time

Not a bad ideal. Check first exactly how much each tooth of movement represents in degrees. That information is in the archives. It has to be fairly close to fifteen degrees so the limited range of on engine injection pump adjustment can meet it.

wow, 15 degrees late... that's less than a tooth if my math is correct... I think you may need to disconnect the IP and rotate it with the cam and crank lined up at the correct marks.

__________________
John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 560SL convertible
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
2005 Dodge Sprinter 2500 158"WB
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!