I have my valve cover off and am turning engine over by hand. I am watching the lobe on the exhaust valve spring for cyl 1.

Mark lines up twice, once just after the lobe rolls over (exhaust valve closed, beginning to open) and then again before beginning to compress the spring (exhaust valve open, beginning to close)

I can't wrap my head around which is the right one.

 

The camshaft spins once for every two rotations of the crankshaft. This is a basic principle of every four stroke engine.

If you have the valve cover off, the easiest way to confirm TDC compression for cylinder #1 is to look at the cam sprocket. Look at the dowel pin on the distributor drive gear at the center of the cam sprocket. The dowel should be at the 12:00 position.

Alternatively, there is a small dot molded into the sprocket near the outer edge by the teeth. This dot and a similar dot on the lower cam sprocket are only used during assembly to align with two brightly colored links on the chain. The links only line up once every few rotations so don't concern yourself over any links and dots aligning. When the engine is at TDC compression stroke for cylinder #1, the dot should be at about the 11:45 position, basically just slightly off of pointing straight up.

 

When the engine is at TDC compression stroke for any cylinder, the cam lobes for that cylinder should be equally far away from their respective rockers. In the case of the 22R series engines, the lobes should be pointing pretty much down (one down to the left, the other down and at and equal and opposite angle to the right).

 

Thanks very much. Here is the cam sprocket with the dowel pin shown when the timing mark is at 0 in both positions.

While not exactly at 12 o’clock I think the second one would be the correct one? Putting my finger over the spark plug hole there is outward pressure while cranking to that position.

 

This is backwards, when the valve spring compresses the valve opens, all pressure off of the spring when the rocker is loose is when the valve is closed.
TDC compression stroke is when the valves are both closed and the timing mark is at zero (piston is at the very top of it's stroke).

 

Ahh thanks that makes sense now that I think about it. I think I got it to TDC and reset the distributor but I still can't get it to fire.

 

Show the cam, the crank, and the distributor rotor positions where you think it's right..

Just guessing but this is a new to you vehicle with questionable history?

 

Since harmonic balancers have been known to come apart and allow the outer ring with the timing mark to slip or to have the keyway wallow out and allow the whole balancer to slip on the shaft the best way I know to be 100% sure you are at TDC is to put a drinking straw or something else flexible enough to do no damage down the spark plug hole for #1 and slowly rotate the engine with a socket on the crank and a breaker bar. When the straw moves up with the piston and stops moving and both the intake and exhaust valves for #1 are closed you are at TDC. If your timing mark on the balancer doesn't line up you need a new balancer and maybe a new woodruff key for the crankshaft. If the piston is at top dead center and your camshaft timing mark doesn't line up or one of the valves is open then your cam is not timed correctly, either the chain jumped due to being loose or not installed correctly or the gears have slipped on the crank shaft.

 

It is new to me but I’m at fault for potentially screwing up the timing. I bought it and drove it home about 60 miles no real issue. Parked it and started to pull it apart for a “getting to know you” clean up. Full desmog, swapped in a Weber carb, etc. At some point I pulled the distributor out without marking it first. I was a little too excited in the heat of the moment I guess. or maybe I had a beer or three too many that night; who knows. Anyhow I’m still a big noob with a lot of this stuff so I figured I’d just put it back as it was and thought I’d be ok since at that point I hadn’t turned over the engine any.

Engine would crank fine but not fire and at this point I didn’t really know what I was doing so I figured I’d pull the valve cover and at least take a gander at things and see if I could get it to make a little bit more sense. From the advice here I believe I was able to confirm TDC but still wouldn’t start. I don’t have a lot of time to work on it so I had it towed to a local shop a buddy with a nice built Tacoma recommended and they got it to fire up no problem, said it was some kind of electrical issue (of course] so at least I feel good that I was able to at least put it all back together correctly.

Just waiting on them to finish doing the brakes since they already had it and then she should be ready to rock sometime this week. Thanks for all the advice. Between sticking a dowel in the spark plug hole and visually looking at the cam lobes (both pointed down and away from each other) I at least feel like I learned something new

 

Not sure if you already tried it but another way to double check if you are truly at TDC is putting a straw in the cylinder 1 spark plug hole and rotate the crankshaft until the straw stops going up.

 

Remember that the straw will go up twice, once for the compression stroke, once for the exhaust stroke. You'll still need to check the valves to make sure they're both closed to be on the compression stroke.

Trust me, it's very embarassing to get everything all set and ready to set the timing, only to find you've been trying hard to set the distributor to the #1 exhaust stroke. Not that I personally would do something like that...ahem...