I was removing my timing belts. While doing so I lined the pulley facing up and along with the marks on the side. When I looked at the fly wheel it showed # 1 and under that it had the letter F.
Is the correct position for TDC on the #1cylinder?
What does the "F" mean?
I know there are other similar discussions on the forum, however I did not see anything describing the letter "F" under the #1 on the fly wheel while looking through the timing hole.
There's four marks on the flywheel, T1, F1, T2, F2. The T marks are TDC for cylinder 1 or 2 and the F marks are where cylinder 1 or 2 ignition would fire with no spark advance. The F marks particularly used on the GL1000 for doing static timing adjustments on the points.
You can turn the crankshaft with a wrench on the crank bolt to find the T1 mark. It is very close to the F1 mark. It won't hurt anything turning crankshaft by hand with the belts off.
When putting the belts back on, note that the timing marks on the cams will rarely line up "Exact". You'll know they are correct if moving the belt one cog in either direction the timing marks line up "worse".
Just so you know, these engines will run without damage if the timing belts are +- one cog off... they just won't run "right".
A local inventor has figured a way to turn a sausage grinder backward to manufacture pigs.
♫ 99 Little Bugs in the Code, ♪
♪ 99 Bugs in the Code. ♫
♫ Take one down, Patch it around, ♪
♫ 127 Little Bugs in the Code. ♫ ♪
~Mark
“It won't hurt anything turning crankshaft by hand with the belts off.”
If the crank is turned with a valve(s) open very much, it will likely bend a valve.
There are points where all the valves are 98% on the base circle and safe to turn the crank. Up mark at 2 o’clock on the right side and 8:00 on the left side has all valves closed or nearly closed. At that point it’s safe to turn the crank. Right and left are as sitting on the bike. However, if you don’t know where the crank is, it may not be safe to turn the belt pulleys.
Carefully turn the crank 90 degrees away from T1, whichever way you can without contact, then you can turn the cams without contact to their respective marks on the belt covers. (I turn the crank counterclockwise from T1, adjust the pulleys to the marks, then turn the crank clockwise back to T1 after aligning the marks. ) With the right side cam on the mark, the #3 intake valve spring will walk the cam clockwise a little. Let it go where it wants, then you can bring the crank back to T1 in the opposite direction of the way you turned it above.
