All,
Since I have done everything else I could think of to fix my smokey shaky 240D I have turned to timing and may have found something important. Using the not super accurate cam tower marks I show a stretch of 25 degrees ATDC. This tells me I am 1 tooth off. When I put the balancer at TDC the notch on the cam looks to be about 1 tooth , turning the cam CLOCKWISE from the front, away from lining up correctly. My injection pump is pulled to retard as far as the sloted holes will allow. The car starts ok, idles with a terrible shake in gear and smokes black/grey when warm in gear. Runs better than my 300D on the highway and has great pickup. Motor has 130k confimed on it. Good compression, motor mounts, yadda yadda. My question for the cam experts out there is this: Would the motor run, with no interference, with the cam 1 tooth late? Am I reading the signs correctly that I am in fact 1 tooth late? Can I spin the cam 1 tooth CW and fix my woes?Help! Its apart right now waiting for a gurus knowledgeable touch!

Yes, it will run without interference at 18 degrees retarded.

The signs appear to be correct, however, I would not use the tower marks as the final conclusion. I would perform a proper test using the 2mm valve lift method as specified in the FSM to be absolutely sure of the cam timing before I go start moving cam sprockets.

Then, the question remains as to where the IP timing is...........???

I have my dial indicator in the mail. But what your saying is that the dial indicator could tell me that 25 degrees ATDC at the balancer is ok, or even close? Seems so far out of wack that I didnt think it would be needed until fine tuning. If I move it 1 tooth forward, spin it by hand and it doesnt interfere, is there any reason i shouldnt try to start it and see what it does? The injection timing by using the welling up method shows about 7 degrees BTDC. However, the pump is all the way retarded in its slots already. That tells me its alos 1 tooth off but I wanted to get cam timing right before I play with that. Is this a bad plan?

If you trust the marks on the tower then go for it. Personally, I'd want the confirmation from the dial indicator before I made such a change, but, provided the engine will rotate by hand when you get done, you can't hurt anything.

Just be absolutely sure you know where you are now, so, worst case, you can return to this point if the marks are not proper on this engine, for whatever reason.

This question is purely acedemic but could someone explain how this happens? I can see a couple scenarios where the cam would jump a tooth like bad replacement job or turning the motor backwards. But how do I account for the seemingly 1 tooth off IP and the 1 tooth off Cam? Could someone have replaced the timing chain and had it come off both those gears? I guess Im just trying to find out what sort of monkey business could cause these symtoms in case there is something else thats been hamfisted.

For whatever reason people do not install chains and cogged belts correctly on a regular basis. Not worth thinking about really. Just correct the problem properly. I even examined a car they had put it on wrong on purpose to sell the woman more work. Something along the lines the car would explode if she took it from the dealership. I took a quick look and told her to have her lawyer give the dealership a call. Why should she pay me to rectify what she had already paid the dealer to do? Pretty sick out there and makes it pretty bad for the honest mechanic. If for some reason you cannot repair your own car start looking for one. They are out there but it is up to you to find them. You also want high skill level. Also watch personal recomendations. For some strange reason some people appear to like being abused. As strange as that seems. I have always wondered about that. When we were in business we always treated other peoples property like it was our own. We were always busy and people trusted us. Another strange thing was we also made far more money overall even though our billing was honest.

I proved that the hard way.

Ok, so in my previous threads I have gone through every aspect of this 240D to stop the shaking madness. Only in gear, only in low idle. Worse when cold, better when warm but still not acceptable. So, the latest thing Im working on has been timing. I found the cam timing to be off by one full tooth. I corrected that last night. Has not effected the idle problem at all. Looks to be about 4 degrees of stretch and no offset key. However, before it was about 27 degrees due to the tooth so I was hoping for some gains when corrected. Nope.

Here is the reason for this thread. The injection timing, determined by the wellling up method is about 7 degrees BTDC. Way retarded for an 81 240D. Should be 24 +/-1. The pump is pulled away from the engine the full swing of the bolt slots to achieve this. So, tonight I push the pump in toward the motor to advance the timing to about 25 degrees BTDC. Not perfect but a lot closer than 7. Car will barely start cold. Once running sounds like its knocking a bit. Tons of black smoke. Stalls in gear in low idle. Much less power. Terrible shake! So I swing the pump back to full retard and its back to better idle and driveable. But still not right. Could someone please explain to me what could cause this??? HELP!!

Now, that is surely baffling.

I would have expected the engine to improve performance if the IP was advanced toward 24BTDC, but, it behaves as though it's way too far advanced.

So, the question now begs as to whether the indicator on the crankshaft damper is in the proper position???

Maybe the indicator is not proper and the camshaft and IP were proper???

Probably necessary to verify TDC of #1 and versus the indicator.......not easy to accomplish with the head in place........but........others have done it.

The other thread was about cam timing. Which was resolved. I even whent so far as to include the solution to finish that thread. Inj pump timing isnt even mentioned in the title to the other thread. Why would someone with inj pump info even read it based on that title? Is the rule here really to keep all the issues of a single car with a single engine in a single thread? Im confused...

The problem appears to be more complicated that simply "cam timing" and "IP timing". The cam timing may not be resolved.

See my response, above.

Without the history of the cam timing situation, folks will be lost with the IP timing. You won't get a solution because it makes no sense by itself.

I suppose thats true. It always makes sense in the posters head and its easy to forget that others dont know the whole history.

As for TDC, I suppose I could pull the Prechamber to check it. Not a fun job but its one I have done twice on this motor already.

The problem with the balancer being off is this: The cam tower marks are dead on now. The cam lobes for #1 look right for TDC. Had I moved it one tooth with the balancer off by so much I would have had to slap a piston with a valve. Im thinking perhaps the welling up method is my failure point. I have read allll the threads on pump timing and the tutorial on the welling up method. However, I still dont feel like I am getting it quite right.

I am sucking out all fuel in the #1 pressure valve with a shop towel. Then turing the crank till I just see a bubble of fuel show up in the center of the little hole in the bottom of the holder. It doesnt come rushing up or anything. It also is a very small amount...almost like a bubble bursting. Does that sound like the correct method? It would make so much more sense in ight of the other issues if the pump was one tooth off as well. I just cant seem to make the timing method fit that scenario.

EDIT...Also doesnt seem like swung all the way to the end of the slot holes is the correct place for the pump to be. And thats the only place it runs at all normal.

Did somebody move your thread in with this one? I saw it for a moment, then it was gone. Now it is in the body of this thread......

__________________
Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

Yeppers. It was moved.

Arrghh..the dreaded drip. I was afraid it would come to that. I may be game for a wack at pulling the pump and reinstalling it the factory way with the missing spline and TDC and all that. Then time it by ear the old fashioned way. I really dont see anyone talking on here about how great the drip method works. Plus I have to go buy another tool!

..........somebody did..........sharp eye Jimmy.