today i got a new timing light for another project and since i am not ready to fire my truck quite yet i decided to play with my new toy on my caddy. On the sticker in the engine compartment it said that the timing at 1600RPM w/vacume disconnected should be 23Deg. When i pulled the trigger on the light it was reading 45Deg at idle with the vacume disonnected. to me that seems like a lot of advance for idle or really in general for that matter. But ar always starts and runs fine. The only time i ever experience any sort on engine performace issues is when i hit the kick down and the3 secondaries open up, as i'm driving. Then the engine kinda sputters a little then takes off. But that would be more of a crab. issue than timing.

so if anyone could help me out and give any advice on why my timing is soo advanced that would be great. thanks

You probably had it on the wrong wire. If it was at 45 it'd be pinging like hell if it even ran.

No i had it on the right wire. because at first i had it on the wrong one becasue a caddy v-8 numbers the cylinders backwards from a small block chevy. so i put the pick up on the left bank front cylinder then i could actually see the timing mark. UNless what i was looking at wasn't the mark on the crank all i could see that looked anything like a timing mark was a notch that was on the bottom pully.

dis regaurd some of the nonsence from my previous post. I know that the caddy's and small blocks number thier cylinders the same. I posted that last night when i was not entirely sober.:drinker


but i know that i had it ion the correct wire. anyone think that there could have been and interference issue with the other wires that were close to the pick-up?

Maybe interferance but kinda doubtful, if a nearby wire is that bad it should be replaced.. I hate it when people say the left side of the engine, cause from the front of the car it's the passenger side from inside it's the drivers side. #1 is on the front passenger side.

i doubt that it is interference the wires are in great shape.

and usually when people say left or right side of the engine it is from looking straight on the engine point of view. at least that is pretty much the way most people that work on cars for a living go by.

Wgat exactly does the timing mark on the crank pully look like? the only thing that distincly resembled a mark on the crank that i could see was a notch on the pulley. it was like a small rectangular nothc where ther was a part missing from the pulley. that is what i marked with calk and was looking at.

i doubt that i will mess with it right know since i don't know exactly what to look at i guess. and the car has been running like a clock since i got it about a year ago. but this whole thing has made me curious.

I was figuring you meant the passenger side but you see my point..

The timing mark is the notch you describe. Don't know what to tell you other than if it runs strong and gets decent mileage don't mess with it. :bonkers:

does anyone think that there could be a possibility of the crank pully getting installed wrong or slipping on the crank casueing my problem?

The crank pully wouldn't have an affect on timing..

well what ever the hell the timing mark is on then. it looked like the pully was all one piece with the damper. I'm just lookin' for some answers on why the timing light showed 45 degrees. And NO it wasn't user error i have been usung timing lights longer than i've been able to legally drive a car.

Well, it is a head scratcher. I'd just not worry about it if you're getting good power and good mileage.

yeah i get decent mileage(as good as a 425 gets i guess:wacky: ) i just wante dto make sure that the timing was absolutly on the dot before i sell it. cuz i'm gonna fix the blower motor, exhaust leak and the choke before i try and put it in the paper to sell.

when i mentiond that the possibility of the balancer spinning and the mark moving you know what i mean. cuz the engine is untouched since they assembled it so i guess it could be a possibility of the rubber getting old and weak and allowing the mark to move. that is IF it is similar to a chevy balancer.

The timing mark is a notch in the pulley itself.....top dead center will show through the hole in the pointer. The passenger front cylinder is number 1 on a Cadillac 425.

Did you have the vacuum advance hose plugged or was it left open?
I don't have tune-up specs in front of me but you might want to double check them.

i had the vacume advance plugged and connected and it seemes to make little diffrence on the timing. so maybe there is something not functioning in the dist? but the wierd thing is that the car runs fine and always has. the tune up specs that i had previoulsy mentioned were on the sticker in the engine compartment. i belive they were on the radiator support. could the pulley have been put on wrong to give me a false reading? or do they only go on one way?
it seems silly to really worry about all this if the car is running fine but this whole thing has sparked more curiosity more than anything.

this whole thing has sparked more curiosity more than anything.

Nice pun.

oh ha ha ha i didn't even realize that

pardon the pun then:D

The pulley will only bolt on one way.

DANG i figured that was the case:bonkers:

hmmm i guess next time i have time i'll take the cap off and check the moving parts in the dist. i already cleaned up the mechanical advance when i put the new cap on but i guess i'll check the vacume advance....
it's just sooo wierd that the car runs fine now and has never run bad!:banghead:

okay i'm getting somewhere now. today i took the cap off and checked to see if the advacne was having any sort of mechanical isuues on moving. and i twisted the rotor and it would barely spring back it feels like it is all gummed up or something so possibly tomorrow i'm gonna investigate this more. any suggestions on what sort of grease may be good for this? when i out the cap and rotor on i just put a thin coat of bearing grease on the weights to keep them moving freely, which the weights still are but i guess it would be the vacume advance is sticking then.