Engine Timing
 

New member looking for a helping hand...

The head gasket failed on my 1992 240 and decided to replace it myself. Eager to have the car back on the road, I unwisely disassembled the engine without setting it to TDC. I took the cylinder head to a machine shop to get checked for any warpage and now I'm left with an engine that is not timed correctly.

What can I do in this situation? Should I have the machine shop make sure the valves that coincide with cylinder one are fully closed? I currently have the timing belt, belt tensioner, cam sprocket, and crankshaft pulley removed. What is the correct way to set the timing, in my case?

Any input would be great!

You should be able to time it using the following procedure: https://www.brickboard.com/FAQ/700-9...tAlignment.htm

the crank and cam pulleys can only go onto the shafts one way, since they are all keyed.

once they are installed, follow act1292's link, its pretty hard to go wrong there.

I just did the timing on my 740 a month ago. This would have been helpful. At least I got the timing job right on the first try.

So long as the timing marks line up correctly when you reassemble, it does not matter where TDC was. The car won't care if you line it up in the compression stroke or the exhaust stroke, it will figure it out (this is because the spark fires on both strokes anyway)

Double check everything and set the belt alignment up again, you will be fine.

TDC is really more of a guideline to simplify the process, the same idea as measure twice cut once. It saves you time in the long run, but didn't matter. Alignment matters more on interference engines as they have the potential of damaging the valves, but the resolution is exactly the same.

This is great! Very helpful information...

To summarize....these particular engines are non-interference engines. Meaning, the engine was designed where at any point during its cycle a valve and piston can never bang into each-other.

Is there a need to purchase the crankshaft holder tool at this point?

As a review, I can assemble everything back together, then follow the link that was provided in this thread to time the engine correctly? As an example, if the valves for cylinder #1 were completely open, and piston #1 was at TDC, I would still be able to assemble everything and use the various markings to properly time the engine; correct?

You don't need a crank holder tool. You can use the rope trick. This link describes it pretty well:

https://www.brickboard.com/RWD/volvo...unterhold.html

The rest is just as you posted.