VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1937-1945 1940 flywheel marks

Good morning,
yesterday I began to give my 1940 special deluxe a big starting season service including check of ignition and timing.
As I did read here anytime the mark on the flywheel for UC should be a small steel ball pressed into the flywheel.
Mostly not visible because of dirt on the flywheel.
I remember recommendations to take off the flywheel cover under the engine, to clean that area and to mark that steel ball with a point of white colour to see it better.
So I did.
But: Not far from that steel ball, just a bit in "advanced" direction I found another mark in form of a triangle stamped into the flywheel.
What is that for?
After thinking about I found my maybe correct personal answer.
The steel ball marks UC and seeing it I can do a "static" alignment of the ignition timing, means I turn the engine until the ball is in correct position for firing cyl. #1 and after that I rotate the distributor until a timing light shows me the correct position. Just how our grandparents did it. Easy and good way.
But if I use a "timing gun" as we say in german, a strobe flash to check and adjust it while engine is running any adjustment on UC will have a too late timing as result, because the automatic advanced spark control begins to work at idle speed by the vacuum device aside of the distributor.
Might that triangle in advanced position be the mark to be used for a adjustment by strobe flash light?
In case of "yes" that would explain why my engine is always very hot when driving. Late spark gets heat as result as we know.
I got the car last year coming from an "expert", completely serviced and drove just 2500 mls last year, the car was running good and I did not check the timing following the speech "never touch a working device"...
But, if my spark was too late (did time it earlier yesterday) I am full of hope not to have again that problems with unexpected boiling radiator in extremely hot summer weather and as well less consumption of gasoline.

You should know, we here in germany are not far from USD 10.- per gallon (not easy to compare gallons and liters, dollars and euros, but thats the result) and driving begins to be a really expensive "special deluxe" fun. To pay after filling up gas might leave a strong man in tears!

So, who knows what is that stamped triangle on flywheel for?

Stefangermany

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I believe that you have it backwards. The ball is for use with the timing light, it is advanced from UDC (upper dead center) and the triangle marks UDC. Also, the gasoline that you have today is much better than the gasoline of 1940. There are threads on here where it is suggested that the timing can be advanced beyond the ball without creating problems and also providing better economy. The limit on that seems to be that too much advance will make starting difficult,

The timing on our '40 was advanced more than the factory setting. The car had a surge while driving down the highway at a constant speed and it also would run hot. Gene suggested to me to retard the timing and that did it. No more surging and the temperature was back down in the normal range. Don

You might want to read this response by Chev_Nut. timing

Hello, Thank you for all "high brained" input, now I did understand and know again more about my car.

Maybe (depends on actual weather forecast) I'll leave for a 1000mls trip tomorrow. Have 4 days off work after a very exhausting period at work and 4 days off is a present which will not happen again before march 2013 so I should do something with it.
Want to see one of my uncles who did grow up with cars like my 1940 (sorry, not in US), he is from turkey and knows these cars because there were a lot of in use in Istanbul in past.
He did never see my 1940 but I know when he was 17 he drove one in Istanbul and now he is an old man and it would be fun to visit him with a car he drove in his youth.

Will do some experiments with the octane selector now. Clearely it is the best even with modern fuel to find the point just before the engine begins to ping. Dont worry, I am musician in a philharmonic orchestra and my ears will hear anything. No chance to ping the engine to death, I am careful and during driving I will hear and analyze any noise and will know what to do...

But in general I dont agree with "the modern fuel is much better than 1940". The todays ethanol fuel does boil much earlier than the old gas and that creates other brain teasers like shutting down engine because of boiling fuel during snaking in a traffic jam in hot summerdays. Last summer I was happy to have always a bottle of water with me to cool down the fuel pump as first aid when it happened.

Stefangermany

to find the point just before the engine begins to ping. Dont worry, I am musician .
that is the best way - do it by " ear " ! that is how i got my 39 runnin good . the timing light did not work right for me !!!!!!
i wish i could hire chevgene for this - he knows his stuff frank

Ok, I hope, that will be my last posting about the correct 1940 216 engine timing. Or not? Who knows...

As I told you I did set the timing by strobe flashlight at the ball mark. The engine did run good, had no problems during my last long trip, but the actual fuel consumption is in your way of calculating 7 miles per gallon while driving 55 mph as constant as possible on highway. This is very close to what the original consumption tests in 1940 say, but for me it is a bit too much in my mind.
The fuel here in germany is awful expensive now (about USD 10 per gallon), and going to fill up means it will end with an empty wallet without having a filled up gas tank.

So today I made a new adjustment just by ears and feelings for my old bucket of bolts. I did advance the spark as far as possible until I could feel the engine begins to run hard. I could not get the engine at a point to "ping". I guess it must have to do with my engine combination. In 1950 the block did freeze up and was changed, so I have a "new" 1950 block (and flat pistons) and a 1940 head made for dome pistons. My compression rate is not high enough to get the engine at a pinging adjustment.
I tried to find the most possible advanced point and after that I did check it by timing strobe light and I could see it is before the unknown "triangle" mark on flywheel. I will do some driving and see what happens. Maybe (I hope so) the fuel consumption will go down a bit more.
A short round around the block made me good feelings about how the engine runs.
BTW: Somebody told me, the triangle is "UDC" upper dead center, but my ball mark is as well stamped with "UC". So the triangle must be something different.

Stefangermany