the story goes, i took my car to a repair shop. i had issues with the cooling fan circuit. when the cooling fan would come on it would act like the timming was being thrown off. car would run erratically, sputter, missfire, and even backfire. it was an interment issue, not all of the time but when it did act up, it was really really bad. i took it to a shop and told them to do an electrical diagnostic on it. all they did was readjust the base timming. i gave them 175 dollars and all they did was readjust the timming, i was pissed. anyways car ran ok for a few days and then acted up again the same way. i had my fill of the nonsence i bought a fan wirring kit from summit. car no longer acts up like it used to. now it throws a code 43 which it didnt before i sent it in. i swapped out Electronic Spark Control units, still code 43. i had the knock sensor tested at autozone, tested good. i cleaned the knock sensor threads and reinstalled it. i dont know if cleaning the threads will help, maybe it had a bad connection? light never came on all of the time so i have to wait and see if it comes back on or not. my theory is that they messed it up by readjusting the timing when it wasnt necessary. i think they used a timing light and i dont know if a timing light is accurate when an engine that has well over 100K. engine is not really tired but the timing chain is most likely stretched. i want to check the base timing. how do you guys usually do this? if the timing is screwed up i think it would throw a code 43 because it could cause the engine to ping. also sometimes the car idles funny and i dont know if the 2 issues are related.

 

If you don't think a timing light would be accurate, what would be? I'm not sure you really understand how a timing light works, but there is really no way for it to not be accurate. I'm sorry you paid 175$ for them to retime your car, could've bought a gun for 40$ and did it yourself. However they may not have done it right, you have to make sure your computer isn't advancing/retarding your timing when you set the base timing. You think your timing chain is stretched? why?

If you want to check your base timing do this:

get a timing light
heat up your car to normal operating temp
shut it off
jumper the two top right connections on your diagnostic port under the drivers dash with a paperclip or wire (or if you have a vacuum advance distributor, unhook the vacuum and plug off the line.)
hook the timing light pickup to the front most, drivers side spark plug wire and hook the timing light alligator clips to the battery posts
start the car
aim the light at your timing tab.


Pretty simple sir, and get it out of your head that there may be a better way to check timing on a high mileage car, or any car.

 

i thought that timing chains stretch when the engine has alot of miles on it. maybe im wrong. i thought you could time the engine by listening to it. i had someone that told me to advance it to the point where it start to ping and then back it off until the pinging goes away. there is alot of mis-information circulating around so i stand corrected and i should invest in a timing light. could improper setting of the base timing cause a funny idle? and could it trigger a code 43?