B2710 valve adjustment and cylinder # question

BeezFun · Dec 27, 2020

The service manual says the #1 cylinder is the one closest to the gear case. This surprised me, I expected the #1 to be closest to the radiator. So I rotated the timing mark to TDC and sure enough, the cylinder closest to the firewall is on the compression stroke and the cylinder closest to the radiator is not on the compression stroke. So does that really mean the cylinders on this engine are numbered starting with #1 next to the firewall and #4 next to the radiator? Or am I missing something

RickB · Dec 27, 2020

The "gear case" is the timing cover at the front of the engine, towards the radiator.

BeezFun · Dec 27, 2020

RickB said:
The "gear case" is the timing cover at the front of the engine, towards the radiator.

So I'm stumped. The top dead center mark on the flywheel is clear, and when it's visible in the inspection port the cylinder closest to the firewall is on the compression stroke. I'm going to sleep on it and have another look tomorrow. Maybe I'll just do it the old fashioned way and put each cylinder on compression stroke and set the valves for that cylinder and forget the top dead center mark.

jaydee325 · Dec 28, 2020

Rotate the crank one full revolution. The timing mark will show up again and the cylinder nearest the front of the tractor will now be at TDC compression stroke.

BeezFun · Dec 28, 2020

jaydee325 said:
Rotate the crank one full revolution. The timing mark will show up again and the cylinder nearest the front of the tractor will now be at TDC compression stroke.

That worked, the thing that threw me off is that when you rotate the flywheel 360deg, none of the other cylinders come to top dead center. Here's the instructions from the shop manual in the form of a table that I had to stare at for awhile:
View attachment 681308
So when timing mark is showing TDC for cylinder 1, you can also adjust the various intake and exhaust valves shown on the other cylinders. When you rotate the TDC mark 360deg, there is no other cylinder at TDC, you just adjust the remaining intake and exhaust valves that weren't adjusted in the first step. It seemed odd to me, I ended up only using the timing mark to do cylinder 1, then I found the TDC for each of the other cylinders and set both valves for that cylinder.

Henro · Dec 30, 2020

BeezFun said:
That worked, the thing that threw me off is that when you rotate the flywheel 360deg, none of the other cylinders come to top dead center. Here's the instructions from the shop manual in the form of a table that I had to stare at for awhile:
View attachment 681308
So when timing mark is showing TDC for cylinder 1, you can also adjust the various intake and exhaust valves shown on the other cylinders. When you rotate the TDC mark 360deg, there is no other cylinder at TDC, you just adjust the remaining intake and exhaust valves that weren't adjusted in the first step. It seemed odd to me, I ended up only using the timing mark to do cylinder 1, then I found the TDC for each of the other cylinders and set both valves for that cylinder.

Unfortunately it looks like the attachment does not work...