Main gears

[David Stepney]

Thanks for the quick replies gents.
The main reason is very noisy tickover stops with slight increase in engine speed.
Also very poor ability to climb small rises.
Also if you stop the engine at a point when no valves are working a degree of play can be felt at
the cam pulley difficult to explain the amount of play but a definite click heard.

Are you sure it is the timing gears? I appreciate that it is nigh on impossible to diagnose noises without hearing them, but my engine is noisy on tickover and quieter at higher engine speeds. I suspect that this is due to rear main rumble but I shall live with it given that my car generally runs very well.

Given that the car appears to lack power, I repeat what I said on your 'Propshaft Problems' thread regarding ignition timing. I presume that your new distributor bobweight springs have arrived and are fitted. It may be worth checking the timing with a strobelight. Having little experience of Rubies, I do not know how difficult it is to gain access to the flywheel timing marks, but temporary marks can be made on the camshaft pulley. With a high compression head, you should get about 16 degrees of advance at the flywheel or 8 degrees on the camshaft pulley. Given that you are running a low compression head, it might wear anything up to 20 degrees at the flywheel (10 degrees at the camshaft pulley) before the engine starts to sound harsh.

Just as a quick guide, 16 degrees at the flywheel equates to about 1 1/4 ins at the flywheel rim and 20 degrees to about 1 9/16 ins