The V8 Owners Forum -

Please be gentle with me as I am pretty new to electronic ignition having only dealt with points systems for the last forty years on many and various classics.
I now own a Range Rover Classic which is a 4.2 LSE model.
I removed the distributor yesterday and stupidly lost the marks for the refitting when I cleaned the outer body so now I have to refit it from scratch.
Firstly, I cannot find a timing mark pointer on the engine anywhere. I've checked around the timing cover area and the underside but to no avail.
Okay, I know I can find TDC and make my own pointer but I wondered if anyone could tell me what I should be looking for on this model please.
There is a fin on the water pump body which seems in the right field but I would prefer some guidance please.
Secondly, once I have established TDC and refitted the distributor so that the rotor points to no.1 segment, I can set it up to 8 degrees BTDC but without the ability to check the contact points opening, how do you know where to fix the body of an electronic distributor please?
Sorry for the dumb questions but my present other vehicle is a 1952 Series 1 Land Rover and it definitely doesn't have a V8.
Thank you
Graham.

There are various ways of doing this, here is my method:
Remove even side rocker cover, and turn the engine until both valves on no. 6 are equally open. This means No. 1 is at TDC on the firing stroke.

Then I fit the distributor such that the rotor arm is pointing at No. 1, and that a spike on the reluctor ring (below the rotor arm) is pointing directly at the pickup spike. This is a bit of a pain in the arse because as you insert the distributor, the spindle rotates on the cam gear, and also you have to get it to engage with the oil pump (unless it's late enough that it has a crankshaft driven oilpump).

You might then have to turn the distributor clockwise a little bit, then she should fire up OK.

Then I just adjust the distributor manually until I think it is performing normally!

Chris.

Thanks a lot for that Chris, I'll get back on it at the weekend and let you know how I fair.
Graham.

Just to say that after being rained off from work today I managed to get her going again. Many thanks for your advice and assistance, much appreciated.
Also noted that the distributor shaft doesn't have an oil pump drive at the bottom, just a hole where it used to be. Any idea when they stopped using that method and went for the crankshaft drive please?
Mine's a 1994 4.2 engine.
Thanks again
Graham.

The crank driven oil pump was introduced in Jan 1994.
Sounds like you have an "Interim" engine with the water pump rotating anti-clockwise.
The TDC pointer is part of the front cover casting and is approx at 1-2 o'clock when viewed from the front.

Thank you very much for that Mr Devonman.
In theory it should have made refitting the distributor that much easier but not in my case!