Why can't I read the timing?
 

I have tried two different lights and neither one will get a reading on my 89 coupe. The runs perfectly. My father-in-law just bought a brand new Craftsman Light and it worked great on his car, but one day later it won't read anything on mine. I have a new light also and it won't read either. What the hell? Spout connector is in(not like that matters) and I have tested to make sure that I am getting power to the light.:confused:

look
 

Are you getting power to the light? what size are the plug wires? too thick? Maybe its not sensing the connection. I dont know heh...

IF you do have power and the light is strobeing....
Did you mark a white line at the degree that you want on the Balancer? Thats what I always do! so i can see it!.. Also try clamping a different plug wire with the timming light... shouldnt the timming retard when you rev the engine up? try moving the distributor slightly, but mark it so you know where it was when you started :)... thats all i know!


Oh yeah thanks for the advise on the bushings man.. I got the bushing set today in the mail, its gonna be a pain in the *** to do them all but i have a 3 day weekend :)

Timing
 

I know how to set timing, that is not the issue.

There is no light at all from the timing light. I guess the wires could be keeping it from reading. I have brand new 9mm Ford Racing wires. My father in law has 8mm Motorsport wires and we checked it perfectly.

help
 

Why do you want to check the timming? is there something wrong?
Try a few more other cars and see, if the light broke... try wiggling all the connections on it, scrape a good connection on the batt... heh trying to help.....

Timing
 

I am just setting the timing back to 14 since I have good gas in there for once.

Nothing is wrong with the car it is running perfectly.

I don't have any other cars to test on... they are all new with DIS ignition.

I have already tested the power to the light. I had a DMM attached to the light at the same time to prove to myself that the light was receiving power. I am just going to use coat hangers instead of spark plug wires so that I can get a dam reading. :D

Glad to see you got the bushings TMASTER. The upper bushings took me about an hour and The lower ones should be fairly easy. Just take your time.

I don't want to offend with such a simple suggestion, but I have had this problem as I was working on mine the light would work then I'd make an adjustment and go to retest and it wouldn't work. And it was just the ground alligator clip not getting a good bite, or loosening as I'd move the gun around.

Try putting an old 8mm wire on the #1 plug.

Take care,
~Chris

I'll try that Chris. I may have an old Bosch wire laying around here somewhere. Thanks for the help.

FWIW, My timing light works with my FMS 9mm wires...
It wont strobe at all? Try hooking it up to a wire on one of your other cars, even with the DIS it should still strobe to make sure the lights working.

Try hooking it up to the coil wire, and see if it fires at all.
IMOHO, sounds to me like a bad power connection to the timing light, versus something with the plugwire pickup.

Timing
 

I'll try the coil idea.

The light is getting power. I have already tested it with a DMM as stated above.