Does anyone have a cool suggestion for a homemade tool to find the top of Cylinder 1's travel to TDC with the dizzy open and near the mark / or is there a better way??

My fan has no marks anywhere near on both "sides"of the fan blade locations thru the hole....

thanks

turn the engine until the rotor on the dizzy is pointing at the #1 cyl wire on the cap.

Then rock the car back & forth until you find the mark on the flywheel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtPd5qzyTk8

That is TDC#1

I actually watch the rocker arms. It should line up with some kind of mark.

Once you find the marks on the flywheel you should be able to find it on the fan.

All very good advice and appreciated - but not, in this case, a solution. For some odd reason, this motor was built with a markless fan / and worse yet, no wide fan blade at the 34 degree area....

However.... In order to get in a nice SoCal PCH ride in today (after four soaking freezing days in Seattle looking for another 914 - that never showed up....) ... I found a solution... back in SoCal.

Get the dwell angle perfect with the SunPro - between 45 and 50..., and make sure the points are clean and the lobes are lubed / get the rotor pointed directly over the notch in the rim of the dizzy, then pluck #1 plug and put a chopstick in the hole resting against the top of the cylinder,.. //// use a rubber band connected to a carb fitting to apply gentle tension between the chopstick and the threaded area where the plug goes into the head,.... then watch the chopstick move back and forth until you find best real TDC* .

Then mark the markless fan with whiteout in the "V" notch.

Next dial in 35 degrees of advance on the adjustable timing light and fire the little 2.2L puppy up while adjusting the dizzy to get your mark in the middle of the notch at 3200 to 3500rpm's at advance / then drive it very hard to see if all is good.

All is good. See you in Are-we-gone

* Ancient Chinese proverb: If your tool is not centered and deep in its correct place (the hole), no amount of moving back and forth will find true center or enlightened happiness (TDC)

Sidebar: If the mark is not precisely in the correct place on the fan as marked, use a small flat paintbrush with thinner to take the whiteout off and do it again....

What are Sunday's for..

The markings on these pulleys are so bad. And I mean really bad. At this point, you could have a fan off of a variety of engines. The markings range from okay to terrible to non-existent.

On a stock engine, and based on years of experience, I have found that I can time them by ear/feel/test drive. I can get it within about 2 degrees, which I've found is better than most of the factory markings.

If it's a high-performance engine, get out the dial indicator and find true TDC. Mark it and measure your other marks from there.

I pay no attention to the marks on the fan.

I use a variable timing light and use the mark on the flywheel as shown above.
It is even easier to see than dicking with the marks on the fan.

This help?

I modified a spark plug by welding an insert into it so that it would hit the #1 piston somewhere near TDC. slowly turn the crank till piston touches the insert in 1 direction, then the other, having marked the positions on the fan OD, half way between these is exact TDC.

The difference in quality between a /4 and a /6: I can time a /6 (cams and ignition) very precisely based upon the marks on the pulley. A /4? Not so much.

A chopstick?? Oh lord, no!

Search "chopstick" for a thread on here showing why that is not a good idea on most 914s. Apparently you have 2.0 heads; if you do not then you apparently dodged a bullet.

--DD

Yes! The chopstick thread!!

Click to view attachment

Chopstick no work?

I don't know why people insist on using the fan marks. You have to be a contortionist to time the motor thru the fan housing. Much easier to use the flyheel mark.

It is possible the the distributor drive gear has been reindexed. I reindexed mine so the vacum can on my unilite would clear. My number 1 wire doesn't appear in the default location.

I run 12 initial 28 degress total.

Carlos

Chopsticks

,for eating with grasshopper,seriously the issue of the the fan mark has been well documented on the samba.com,the marks just aren't right.
Worth indexing it properly with a DTI then you are set for future tune-ups as mentioned.
Timing on an air-cooled engine is very important to get right,helps the engine run as cool as it can.