How do you find top dead center on a Chevy 305?

Answer 1

For the purpose of installing a distributor, remove the coil wire, remove the number one spark plug (drivers side, first one up front), put your finger tightly into the number one spark plug hole, have some one jog the engine over with the key a little at a time until you feel compression coming from the number one spark plug hole, stop at that point and turn the engine by hand clockwise until the mark on the damper lines up with "0" on the timing scale. This will give you TDC for the number one cylinder on the power stroke. This is where you would drop the distributor in with the rotor lined up on the number one position on the distributor cap.

For cam timing,A degree wheel and either a piston tdc spark plug stop or piston stop with head off. remove spark plugs. With degree wheel mounted on the crank,manually turn the engine over until piston 1 is close to TDC, distributor cap/rotor will get u close. put the degree wheel/pointer to 0. Install stop Turn the motorover by hand until the piston touches the stop, mark the degrees. Crank the engine in the (opposite direction 1+ complete turns)until it touches the stop. Marker the degrees down, add the 2 number(degrees before 0 and after 0) divide by 2 and that is the degrees# before/after 0 the piston should touch the stop. An example: if the piston touched 24 degress before 0, and again 20 degrees after 0. You need to adjust the wheel so it 2 degrees, so that the stop touches at 22 degrees before/after 0.