I had to take the head off to change the valve stem seals. I also changed the head gasket, cleaned everything and re lapped the valves in. Whilst their i also had a play with my dremmel thingy and smoothed the exhaust ports. :D

On putting it all together, i found that my original marks i made to help with the timing, just didn't work at all. I therefore reset the timing from scratch.
It fired up first time and settled into a nice high idle.
This is where it gets a little weird. :unsure:
Whilst idling, everytime i 'blipped' the throttle, i got flames from the exhaust.

Could this be caused by, close but not dead on timing, or is it an overfuelling issue, or both?

I take it that it did not do this before.

I would suggest that the timing is out.

What is the strobe saying?

Is it electronic or points?

Does the rotor arm line up with the lead contact when firing.

Cheers

Andrew

No, prior to the head coming off, it ran fine. The dizzy has points and i have checked the settings of all the timing bits over and over. The only other check i can do is when i can get a timing light.

Just thought of a theory which i should probably think through before writing this but hey ho.

If the plug gaps were too narrow, maybe the spark would not be big enough to burn all the mixture, leaving some to go out of the exhaust which is hot enough to ignite it. :unsure:

I suppose, if the timing was a tad out, the same thing would happen, although i can't see how it would run so smoothly in either instance.

The more i think about it the more my head hurts :lol: , And the more possibilities i come up with.

Does the rotor arm point at the lead point when the points fire.

Usually the dizzy has a line on the rim that lines it all up.

Timing is out.

Andrew

Pinto timing is a piece of cake.

Crank at TDC

Cam lined up on the dot on the head and pointer on the cam wheel

Dizzy rotor arm lined up with the slot/notch on the dizzy.

If the cam is lining up ok at TDC - But the dizzy is out then remove the dizzy and replace it the number of teeth advanced or retarded that will ensure the correct alignment.

Andrew

Thats what i always thought until now.

I will have ago later today and see if i can't crack it.

Thanks for the info Andy