Aligning the ignition timing, crank, and valve gear dots?
Posted: Wed May 13, 2015 3:04 am
Hi there. I have a new to me 450 desmo. It was running okayish (besides a fuel problem). I removed the right side cover that houses the points and timing gears. Upon doing this, the timing gear came out and I didn't realize that it was all lined up etc until too late. Now I go back to put it back in and line it up but can't seem to figure out exactly what should align with what because the images in the manual are too small to see what dots they are referring to.
On my ignition timing gear I have a yellow painted dot and an indent dot. On the crank gear I have 2 indent dots that are about 30 degrees apart. On the valve timing gear I have one dot. I seemed to make out in one diagram that one dot on the crank should align with the valve dot and the other dot on the crank should align with the dot on the ignition timing. If so, what is the yellow dot?
Also, in my search I saw someone mention that the bike can be timed with messing with the gears and if that is done then that means that the timing marks mean nothing and it is done with a strobe. After some looks it seems that the dots don't line up. The dots on the bevel valve gears in the head where the tach drive goes in don't seem to ever line up. The dots on the valve gear and crank gear don't seem to line up ever (although I read that it takes six turns for them to do so and I'm not sure if I turned it six times, but I'm not sure why it would take six times). If this is the case, and this special case has been done, then would that mean that the yellow dot is my new line up mark?
And then when aligning these dots: must they align on the compression stroke? So I find where it starts to compress on that stroke and make sure that they line up on that rotation?
I am a little confused on this but it seems like it should be very simple. I appreciate the help!
On my ignition timing gear I have a yellow painted dot and an indent dot. On the crank gear I have 2 indent dots that are about 30 degrees apart. On the valve timing gear I have one dot. I seemed to make out in one diagram that one dot on the crank should align with the valve dot and the other dot on the crank should align with the dot on the ignition timing. If so, what is the yellow dot?
Also, in my search I saw someone mention that the bike can be timed with messing with the gears and if that is done then that means that the timing marks mean nothing and it is done with a strobe. After some looks it seems that the dots don't line up. The dots on the bevel valve gears in the head where the tach drive goes in don't seem to ever line up. The dots on the valve gear and crank gear don't seem to line up ever (although I read that it takes six turns for them to do so and I'm not sure if I turned it six times, but I'm not sure why it would take six times). If this is the case, and this special case has been done, then would that mean that the yellow dot is my new line up mark?
And then when aligning these dots: must they align on the compression stroke? So I find where it starts to compress on that stroke and make sure that they line up on that rotation?
I am a little confused on this but it seems like it should be very simple. I appreciate the help!