Re: How Important is OMC Ignition Timing?

[legendre]

ETA: Apparently, scotty deleted his post while I was writing my reply..

quote scotty:

Thank you, Mumbles. I was under the impression that I had to disconnect the point leads to use the timing tool.

You only need to disconnect the lead between the points & coil if you don’t have an instrument (meter, buzz-box) which is capable of reacting to the small change in resistance when the points open. Seems like that is pretty clear now, which is good.

quote :

I was using an analog meter.

There’s nothing inherently ‘wrong’ with analog meters, that would prevent use in this application. It’s just that virtually all inexpensive, service-grade analog meters aren’t sufficiently sensitive / precise to detect and display the slight (<1 ohm) shift.

This said, there are plenty of analog meters that are quite capable of this job, but they tend to end up in laboratory / research applications, rather than on the mechanic’s bench.

quote :

It was driving me crazy that every time I reattached the point leads it would change the timing slightly.

And that’s another issue.. to me, it says that your points assemblies aren’t really secure to the stator plate. Either that, or you’re being too rough with them when you torque the screws that secure the wire contacts. Swapping wires around shouldn’t change timing geometry, but it can, if the points aren’t firmly in place when you play with the screws,