Is it supposed to be welded on? Or bolted on? Attached is a picture of where I thought it was supposed to sit. I can't properly set the timing without it!


picture: http://imgur.com/rg15ghO

 

I'm not sure what year , but the location of timing marks changed . look straight down (12 o'clock , behind water pump) at balancer . you should see a "O" , that is your timing tab . good luck ...

 

I can't see anything there. My friend has an 89 too and his has the regular V timing tab. Was going to try unbolting his and putting it on mine just to set the timing but we couldn't get it off.

 

It's driving fine, I set the timing by ear and test driving and its runs pretty well, I just can hear it pinging under heavy load and when the RPM's are high. Should I just retard it slightly and take it for a test drive?

 

Looks like someone swapped either the engine or at least the timing cover. The reason I say this is that there is a crank sensor of some sort where a 2.8l RWD engine shouldn't have one.

This being the three-wire sensor that is mostly obscured by the balancer.

RBob.

 

Engine is definitely the 2.8 but if someone swapped the timing cover that would explain why it looks different than my friends. I would guess that its not plugged in to anything? I'll take a look after school. And to fix the pinging under heavy load should I just retard by a couple degrees?

 

Backing off the base timing will help with the pinging. Probably should be done as the 2.8l engines didn't run a knock detection/reporting set up.

RBob.

 

thank you!