Timing on a warner swasey forklift

[liftinglow]

I have a warner swasey forklift. It has a ford three cylinder engine. What would cause the timing gears To come out of alignment? I reset them two times to the proper marks and then spun the engine By hand and each time they kept moving 1,2,3 teeth out of sync on each rotation? I've been working on this for a while and would really Like some insight. Thank you

 

[Fritz Maurer]

The timing gears on this engine are cut so that the timing marks will re-align after several revolutions. It is NOT becoming “out of time “.

 

[liftinglow]

Is there s formula to figure out how many revolutions it takes to realign?

 

[Fritz Maurer]

I’m sure there is, but I don’t know it. I think it has to do with the number of teeth on the idler gear…
…or, if you have nothing to do for a while, spin the crank and count the revolutions until they re-align.

 

[Sean in PA]

It has to do with the ratio of the number of gear teeth on each gear relative to the central idler gear. The mark on the idler gear will line up with the mark on the crankshaft gear once every "x" rotations based on that ratio. The mark on the camshaft gear will line up every "y" rotations based on that ratio. And the mark on the distributor/injection pump drive gear will line up once every "z" rotations based on that ratio. Then you have to find a number that is a multiplier of "x", "y" and "z" that makes them all line up on the same rotation. There was a discussion in a thread here a while back, and I seem to remember (but my memory is getting worse as I get older) that it takes somewhere around 54 rotations of the engine for them to line back up again. As I said, my memory isn't as good as it once was, and maybe that number was ninety-something rather than fifty-something.

 

[Bern]

Is there s formula to figure out how many revolutions it takes to realign?

It doesn't matter. Line them up initially and then move on.

 

[liftinglow]

Still having timing issues. Is there a timing mark on the flywheel? And is there a viewing port?

 

[Sean in PA]

Yes, there are timing marks on the flywheel. There is a view port below the starter.

 

[Fritz Maurer]

What timing issues are you having? You got the cover back on and running?

 

[Dieseltech]

Some engines use an idler gear with an odd teeth number to help prevent gear wear. If I recall SOME engines the marks will not align again until 1700/2000 engine revs. Put it together with the correct gear marks aligned and STOP looking at them. Be aware, SOME injection pumps have three timing gear marks depending if engine is three, four or six cylinder.

 

[Bern]

Still having timing issues. Is there a timing mark on the flywheel? And is there a viewing port?

How many times do we all have to tell you, line up the marks, one time, and then move on!

 

[liftinglow]

What timing issues are you having? You got the cover back on and running?

We did try to start it . It would give us a little white smoke out of the exhaust about every 48 to 52 rotations. Even when we put ethere in, it didn't light that on fire right away or at all, so we tore it back open again and we found that the cam shaft has a lot of slop in it. We are currently splitting the tractor and gonna pull the motor to see what's wrong in the back.

 

[liftinglow]

How many times do we all have to tell you, line up the marks, one time, and then move on!

We can lineup the marks. Just fine, but we could never get. It's run and we couldn't even get it to fire on ether consistently

 

[Fritz Maurer]

We did try to start it . It would give us a little white smoke out of the exhaust about every 48 to 52 rotations. Even when we put ethere in, it didn't light that on fire right away or at all, so we tore it back open again and we found that the cam shaft has a lot of slop in it. We are currently splitting the tractor and gonna pull the motor to see what's wrong in the back.

Slop can mean different things… up and down slop or fire and aft slop? The latter is controlled by the retaining plate under the timing gear.
You don’t mention whether it’s a Diesel. Any possibility that, during this timing procedure, you could have gotten it out of time and bent the valves?

 

[liftinglow]

It is a gas engine. Valves look good. Slop was back and forth on the cam. It's supposed to be. 001--.006 ours is .75-.1. Also when we dug a little deeper there was a chunk missing by the keyway on the crankshaft. Digging further into this mystery this week...