Ignition timing question

[Sie!]

Evening all,

Time for a daft question from me, I’m looking for some assistance/guidance with the ignition timing on the 80. It’s the 4cyl DS (carb 1781).

To cut a long story short I’m about to take the distributor off to change the hall sender, but before I do that I wanted to check the ignition timing before I start, I’m new to this so have just bought a timing gun to assist.

So, from reading the haynes, my understanding is that when I take the vacuum feed off the dizzy, with the car at idle and warm, the ignition timing for the number one cylinder should be when the mark aligns with the pointer on the flywheel...the flywheel has two marks, one ‘0’ which I believe is TDC, and one ‘|’, which I believe to be the ignition timing mark - is that correct?

So that when I replace the distributor, I set the static timing, then start the car and turn the dizzy until the gun flashes when the pointer aligns with the | mark - is that right...?

If I am right in what I say above, then when I checked the timing on the car today something strange is afoot, if I take the vacuum line off with the car warm, the gun fires and I cannot see anything on the flywheel, if I leave the advance attached, the gun flashes and the timing mark is about 3 teeth out, on the side of advanced.

Can the timing on the car be out by that much? MPG is great, power is fine, idles nice... and I've driven it over 50k and the timing has never been touched.

Sorry to babble on, I just don’t want to take the thing to bits and not be sure on how to reset anything.

Many thanks for any advice you may have.

Stay safe!


Sie!