Tim,
I had a '54 Chevy car with a 235 and its peep hole for timing was on the conventional side...above the starter.
The ball is ALWAYS on the pointer when #1 is TDC. It might be TDC on exhaust or it might be TDC on compression, but the ball will always be on the pointer.
This wouldn't apply is someone mechanically altered the location of the flywheel to the crank, but there would be no reason to do this that I can think of...unless someone wanted to use a fresh section of ring gear and went through the trouble of drilling some new holes in the flywheel. I guess stranger things have happened huh!
Stuart
