Hey guys,

I got my rebuilt carb on the car and I have a friend who's in his 80's and worked for Oldsmobile on these cars new. He came over today and helped me adjust it and it seemed to be pretty good but I noticed a tinny sound when I got in it a little bit going up the hill.. anyway I turned the car off and he left and annoy later I went to drive it and I noticed it was now running a little rough.. it seemed to run rough from idle up which it did even with the old carb.. at the gas station it was idling in drive smooth then it would dip down and run rough for a second and then smooth and back and forth.. anyway, on the way home I figured that noice I'm hearing is probably it pinging (while waiting for the new carb I replaced the cap, rotor, wires and plugs AND the vacuum advanced was stripped at the fitting by the previous owner so I replaced that with a NOS and when doing so I wondered if it was even working at all.. so when I got home I opened the garage and went to start it to move it in and it was hard to turn over so I figured another sign it may be too advanced. Anyway I grabbed my wrench and after it cooled a bit I got under to retard it (turn it clockwise) and to my surprise thanks to the previous owner it wasn't even tight!! Talk about variable timing!! Anyway, I rotated it just a bit clockwise and tightened it down but I noticed it was still a bit hard to turn over and once running it ofcourse ran even worse when I tried to give it some gas..

I am going to buy a timing light and hope there is a mark on the balancer to match up to the point (any idea where it was or what it looked like from factory?) but I was wondering what you guys would Recomend I do to resolve and tune it after changes? My friend can't make it back for a couple weeks so I figured I would try to get it close myself if possible..

Any idea are much appreciated!! Thanks guys!!

 

If you have a manual than read up on the timing procedure. If nothing else it will at least be ballparked until Cliff gets back.

 

Hey Scott, I have read it but I since figured it out. I was told it was clockwise to retard but I've realized if the engine runs counter clockwise then theoretically that can't be possible it has to be the other way around so essentially I was advancing it more when it was too advanced! I have retarded it now but haven't had time to check it but I think I may actually get to enjoy my car soon lol! I'm getting excited!