The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Quicky points setting technique in the dark!

Well, a buddy of mine was tired of me "temporarily" storing a 52 5-window in his barn for the last 18 mos. So when he heard I had concrete on the floor of my pole building, he made the call and I headed over to pick it up.

It really did run when I parked it, so I threw a fresh charged 6 volt battery in it, dumped some fresh chainsaw gas in the carby and cranked and cranked without the coil wire till the oil pressure guage came off the post. Connected the coil wire and cranked and cranked and NADA.

No spark! So I pulled the cap, filed the points and got a really weak spark. SO then, I grabbed my biggest honkenist prybar screw driver and used that to run the starter and hold onto the coil wire with one hand whilst I adjusted the points with the other hand while cranking - all the while watching the spark from the coil grow and shrink with intensity as I adjusted the points gap. Sparks were easy to see as it was really dark by now. Once I got the spark to jump about 1/2 an inch, I tightened down the plate, plugged everything back together and pulled #1 wire and check for spark the while cranking and viola - the engine started right up and ran pretty decent for only 5 cylinders. I plugged #1 in while it was running and it smoothed right out. Brakes worked good, EVERY SINGLE LIGHT WORKED TOO! (except the grill marker lights - but that was because I had pulled the grill when I first bought it) - even the guages lit up when I turned on the headlights and the cab overhead light works too!

It is now all by itself parked in the middle of the new floor. Good times!

ken

Pretty slick although my eyes have gotten bad enough that I'm not gonna try setting my points this way. Why didnt u use ur stroblight?

Hey, that's a neat trick!

I'm wondering if you measured the gap when it was home, and if it's close to the spec?

Seems to me like that should be the "optimal" setting. The factory spec would be an "average" setting. Could it be this would produce a better running engine? Are there any risks to having the gap too large/small if the spark is good?

I suppose you have to worry about things like dwell and bounce if you get to high RPMs, but this is a low RPM engine...

-Boyo

The trick I learned was to use a worn out dime.
An old timer told me they would always adjust points with an old worn out dime. So I would reach in my pocket and find an old Mercury head dime,
set the points and get a 5 cent soda and a 19 cent gallon of gas.....

Ken - You mean with all that gas around you didn't go BOOM

Fred, I poured gas in the carburator throat, not all over the engine! Drove it up and down the road today Ran good, brakes work well. That guy musta taken good care of this truck mechanically. Wish he would have paid a little more attention to keeping it out of the weather.

Ken, if it becomes too much to store it in that barn with the new concrete floor, you can have me haul it off so you can make room for more Suburbans

If the poor ting is lonely all by itself , I could have you store, temporarily, some truck buddies to keep your 5 window happy. :p :p