wayhey after getting my hands on ( a very old and hard to see) strobe light i finally managed to do the ignition timing, and i realised why the thing was running like a bag of nails, the white mark showed up at around 9 oklock on the crank pully instead of being up around 12 oclock....haha i was pretty shocked to be honest but a wee twist and bobs your uncle she ran sweet as a nut, a quick fiddle with the idle and mixture and whaoh what a difference...the engine no longer has siezures when you rev it up. wayhey another small step closer to dominating the roads of somerset

Good on you. Always satisfying when you sort something like that.

..ich bin ein pleasenlicht.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Jeeves: "If I may be so bold to warn you, sir, the speedometer is reading 85 miles to the hour. And the distinct smell of burning is precipitating into the cockpit."

Wooster: "Burning Jeeves? That's the hearty scent of hot oil and pounding pistons. Nothing--"

BANG

Jeeves: "I fear your prediction of arriving on time for the ten to six may now be null and void, sir."

Neuf heures est tres mal, et douze heures, ca c'est bon. Maintenant elle volle.

Dominating ???? lol

dominating...ie owning, using like a slave, terrorising..... i live in taunton, which is in somerset...

Were Chippenham so if you car going to Coc we can meet up.

...especially on a 3 litre Essex?

A daft question but my Essex has a dab of white on a notch in the front pulley. The timing was roughly set by ear as I had no decent strobe, last week I got one and lined up the white dab with 14deg on the timing marks. It was quite a way out and is now running under less power than it had when set by ear! lol

When piston #1 is at TDC the pulley's timing mark should be facing upwards or at 0deg?

i found that when timed mine propperly because the timing was so out i had to adjust the mixture when i timed it to the correct timing mark, check the haynes manual for the timing it should be at i think that the timing they tell you might be the best for fuel consumption but not power, hence every one having there own preference of what they time the car to, but that could be completley wrong :D