Today I borrowed a strobe light to have a go at checking and setting the ignition timing. I understand the procedure is
1. make the crank pulley timing marks contrasting enough to see them clearly
2. run the engine up to temperature then turn engine off
3. unplug the no1 cylinder (nearest timing chain) spark lead and put timing light into it and onto spark plug
4. disconect the throttle position sensor plug (rhs of throttle body)
5. restart the engine blip the trottle a few times and get it to a 650rpm idle using plastic idle adjust screw (6mm hex key)
6. point the light at the pulley and read off timing by looking for the notch nearest the pin on the engine block
7. loosen 2x 12mm bolts securing distibutor and rotate it until the timing is 15deg before top dead centre (5th mark counting from the left)
Firstly, how do you know when you're doing 650 rpm idle? particularly if you don't have a rev counter or if like me you don't fully trust it
What happened to me -
disconect tps, start engine, revs shoot to 2200 rpm and stay there. fiddle with (damaged) tickover screw but can't get it down, unscrew butterfly stop grub screw, still can't get it below 1800, reconect tps and now it runs so slowly it stops, realise I can't do this and put everything back to how it was.
Help! Do I now need to solve that issue with my siezed tickover screw in this thread
http://www.micra.org.uk/threads/throttle-body-ebb-style.50778/#post-538213
1. make the crank pulley timing marks contrasting enough to see them clearly
2. run the engine up to temperature then turn engine off
3. unplug the no1 cylinder (nearest timing chain) spark lead and put timing light into it and onto spark plug
4. disconect the throttle position sensor plug (rhs of throttle body)
5. restart the engine blip the trottle a few times and get it to a 650rpm idle using plastic idle adjust screw (6mm hex key)
6. point the light at the pulley and read off timing by looking for the notch nearest the pin on the engine block
7. loosen 2x 12mm bolts securing distibutor and rotate it until the timing is 15deg before top dead centre (5th mark counting from the left)
Firstly, how do you know when you're doing 650 rpm idle? particularly if you don't have a rev counter or if like me you don't fully trust it
What happened to me -
disconect tps, start engine, revs shoot to 2200 rpm and stay there. fiddle with (damaged) tickover screw but can't get it down, unscrew butterfly stop grub screw, still can't get it below 1800, reconect tps and now it runs so slowly it stops, realise I can't do this and put everything back to how it was.
Help! Do I now need to solve that issue with my siezed tickover screw in this thread
http://www.micra.org.uk/threads/throttle-body-ebb-style.50778/#post-538213