I checked the timing on an 01 Altima, the timing marks jump kind of erratically. When they do stop moving I can see I'm way off where I am supposed to be. I'm roughly at 5 degrees ATDC and TDC, I can see the other marks to the right, I'm supposed to be advanced way to the rightmost mark at 20 degrees BTDC.
Does this sound like it's even possible for it to be off this much? Could the timing light be defective? The car idles like garbage and I did take the distributor off a long time ago to change an o-ring but I made sure to put it in the correct/keyed direction and I marked a sharpie mark before I did it on the valve cover and the dist. housing. That sharpie mark is still there and still lines up.
The timing light was set to 20 advance to match 20 degrees BTDC and I was that much off on the timing marks. I set the dial to below zero on the timing light which means almost no advance right? This made the timing marks on the balancer line up to where I should be, 20 degrees BTDC.
Does anyone know if this sounds like something seriously off? Does the distributor even allow me enough rotation to set me where I need to be? Should I do it? If I rotate the distributor can I affect the timing enough to destroy the engine?
Does this sound like it's even possible for it to be off this much? Could the timing light be defective? The car idles like garbage and I did take the distributor off a long time ago to change an o-ring but I made sure to put it in the correct/keyed direction and I marked a sharpie mark before I did it on the valve cover and the dist. housing. That sharpie mark is still there and still lines up.
The timing light was set to 20 advance to match 20 degrees BTDC and I was that much off on the timing marks. I set the dial to below zero on the timing light which means almost no advance right? This made the timing marks on the balancer line up to where I should be, 20 degrees BTDC.
Does anyone know if this sounds like something seriously off? Does the distributor even allow me enough rotation to set me where I need to be? Should I do it? If I rotate the distributor can I affect the timing enough to destroy the engine?