Calling Rob Love or others with info... Jeep F-head engine

[Bob Carriere]

Installing a Jeep engine (rebuilt for the Cdn forces in '86) for a friend.

Where is the timing mark for the F engine.... circa 54....just one valve under the valve cover. At 10 o'clock on the front of the timing cover seems to have a folded piece of steel that could have been the timing reference....but on the rebuilt it is folded flat against the cover behind the pulley and covered with the rebuild grey paint.

Would be nice to turn the engine by hand to set up number one cylinder top dead center but can't find any holes to crank it by means of the ring gear... like a Chev 6.

Grant will provide a shop manual soon to help us out......

On the Chev once you have TDC established and the sparkplug wires in proper order you can have someone crank the starter and slowly move the dizzy by hand until it catches..... refinements come later. Tried the same with the Jeep engine and all I could get was farts and barks...... so we have sparks but not running.

Puzzled!!!!

[rob love]

The pointer is the one you indicated. Earlier engines also had the ribs on the cover to indicate the timing. Timing, (if I remember correctly) is actually at 5°btdc. Seems to me some of the pulleys also had two marks on them, one for TDC and the other for the prescribed advance.



If you are re-using a distributor, make sure you lubricate the weights. Once running, you can accelerate the engine and you should get around 16-18 degrees of centrifugal advance. There is no vacuum advance...the two little lines for the distributor are for venting.



If you still have the shielded wiring, cut a 4" piece of regular ignition wire, stick it into the shielded #1 spark plug, and twist a little exposed core onto the little spring on the end of the shielded wire. You can then hook up yor inductive timing light. That is, unless you are a hardcore SMP guy and have the correct wire adapter.

[Bob Carriere]

I do have the adapter kit....... was very useful on the M37....now I get to use it again.

I will try to see if I can unfold the sheet metal marker from behind the pulley then give it some white paint ...... will look for notches on the pulley can't remember seeing any today.

Sprayed raw fuel into the intake and it sure backfired.....blew off the rubber hose to the breather....so we do have spark.....just at the wrong time/place.

Stay tuned.

[Bob Carriere]

Spent another 4 hours listening to pops and whomps and other spit back from the carb but will not start..... driving me nuts.

Engine is military rebuild and we heard it run last spring in the crate.

Oil pump was not removed so the timing should be the same. Checked voltage to dizzy, lightly dressed the points with a Nichalson ignition file, points spark nicely, contacts in cap and rotor were cleaned to shiny brass. Set engine at 5BTDC....... rotor pointing at number 1......... re-instal dizzy cap.....checked spark at plugs.......cranked pooff pooff. Disconnect fuel line at carb....crank engine....lots of fuel coming out......
I am having the owner crank it with ignition switch on while I slowly maneuver the dizzy back and forth within the range allowed for timing....... hoping that once it starts we just need to tighten up the dizzy nut after some final adjustment.

I have always used this method on the Chev 6.....once it runs I can adjust to its particular sweet spot.

What the hell am I missing.......?

Since we are working inside a wood heated garage I have restrained myself from using ether....my favorite gogo juice....... BUT have squirted raw gas in the intake...... poof poof..... fire ball but will not run.

I have been known to blow up M37 mufflers with ether....blows up real good and opens up the side seam wide open.

Why won't it run?????

[David Herbert]

Valves stuck open ?

David

[Grant Bowker]

Recalling your frustrations with getting a certain 261 Chevrolet in a Cab 11 to fire up, have you made not just 100% but 200%, 500% or even 1000% certain that both the oil pump and the distributor in the M38A1 have offset keys to prevent the distributor being installed 180 degrees out of phase?