Pinto Car Club of America

hello all,        I have a 1977 2.3 liter pinto.  I just rebuilt the motor and I'm have trouble timing it.  The problem is that I don't know what degree to set on the crank pulley.  my Chilton's and Haynes manual say to look of the engine decals for the exact degrees, but the decals have been taken off.  The old mark on the pulley is marked at 20 degrees btdc.  This pulley is the double belt type.  Does anybody know what the correct mark is suppost to be at.  Any information would be a great help.                           THANKS TIM

Welcome to the Forum, I own a 78 with a 2300. What I did was, set the crank pulley at 0 deg.
set the cam to the mark on the pulley, set the distributor on #1 spark plug. Start the car, and then with the distributor vacuum line pulled and plugged, I set the timing with a timing light to 20 deg. BTC.

That sounds like a good whay to start. BTW to locate your TDC remove the #1 spark plug and put a peice of stiff wire in the hole. turn the crank untill you can feel the piston, through the wire just starting to go down in the hole. Make sure you dont have it 180 deg off........... :o

Good one Turbo, I always forget the little things (even though it's not so little when you do that). When your at TDC your piece of wire, I use a screwdriver but you have to be careful that you don't get it jammed in the cylinder, will come in contact with the piston almost immediately after going in the spark plug hole. At TDC your piston will be all the way at the top of the cylinder, 180 off is just the opposite, all the way at the bottom.