The Ford Capri Laser Page

Afternoon all,

So I have been experiencing a 'rattle' from the car under acceleration for a couple of weeks, at first I thought she was pinking but ruled it out after checking the timing with a gun, then I changed the spark plugs for a slightly colder running set, no difference, confirmed the 2 exhausts weren't hitting anything, checked engine and gearbox mountains for wear nothing doing there either, checked all around the pulleys for any contact points, checked alternator/water pump bearings nope nothing, even changed the propshaft yesterday, nothing doing there either, but today I thought I would check the timing again just to be sure and low and behold my timing gun give up the ghost, so I went and got my back up gun, it doesn't have all the features of my now deceased gun but it does the job, connected it up, started the car, removed vacuum advance line and began to check the timing, low and behold according to my back up gun the base timing is way to advanced, she was firing about a quarter of an inch before the pulley arrow even lined with the timing marks on the timing cover!!! To confirm this I went and checked my other car who's timing was set with that knackered gun and that was exactly the bloody same, so all this time it was simply to advanced - I thought it was pinking but the timing gun said otherwise, timing is now set properly and no more pinking.

You really do learn something new everyday

Was your knackered strobe a Gunson by any chance? My old Gunson that I had had for donkey's years died in exactly the same way.

As modern cars rarely need timing set I just bought a cheap little strobe from Machine Mart and it has done what I want.

Paul G wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 3:26 pm Was your knackered strobe a Gunson by any chance? My old Gunson that I had had for donkey's years died in exactly the same way.

As modern cars rarely need timing set I just bought a cheap little strobe from Machine Mart and it has done what I want.

Hi Paul,

No it wasn't mate, it was an Accuspark SP8000 and it was only 2 years old at most, if it had been mistreated in any way I could understand it but it's probably been used around 20 times and handled with the upmost care so I'm a bit pissed off about it especially with the amount of extra work I have done because of it when I could have been concentrating on other stuff that needs doing.

Wayne

More of a NotVeryAccuspark?

I bought a new timing light a while ago ( got an optilux ), just a basic xenon bulb job . I saw there are ones you can dial up how much advance you want , so you can set the light to 8deg and look for tdc on the pulley .........instead of just lookin for 8deg on the pulley,...........beats the shit outa me.........just more gubbins to go wrong ?

Mc Tool wrote: ↑Tue Jul 19, 2022 9:47 pm I bought a new timing light a while ago ( got an optilux ), just a basic xenon bulb job . I saw there are ones you can dial up how much advance you want , so you can set the light to 8deg and look for tdc on the pulley .........instead of just lookin for 8deg on the pulley,...........beats the shit outa me.........just more gubbins to go wrong ?

Well if you run a aftermarket ECU and you want to dial in 20++degrees of advance at idle, a dial up timing light is a must. My pulley only indicates up to around 16degrees IIRC. Dial up timing light is a easy solution.

Mc Tool wrote: ↑Tue Jul 19, 2022 9:47 pm I bought a new timing light a while ago ( got an optilux ), just a basic xenon bulb job . I saw there are ones you can dial up how much advance you want , so you can set the light to 8deg and look for tdc on the pulley .........instead of just lookin for 8deg on the pulley,...........beats the shit outa me.........just more gubbins to go wrong ?

My knackered timing gun had the advance and retard feature on it, every time I used it I had to set it back to zero as the default was set to 10° btdc from the factory.