zKars

There are silver linings indeed. Spending more time with my 3 yr old grand daughter than I ever thought I would. We are playing daycare four days a week. Never played so much barbie or Hide and seek in my life. Even have an indoor swing, and that thing does NOT swing itself. Also have her earning her keep in the shop. Doing her part sanding the air cleaner bolt cup washers. F495BC45-70B6-4744-9B6E-545B7CC5E79E.MOV

Small medium, no wait. Tall, Grande, Venti? All the holes are exactly 17mm

Progress today. Cup washers are back from the plater. Look good to me! Now I have to go buy more plumbing rubber washers to complete them. By “go out” I of course mean, order on line. I found some at Ukrainian Tire. Coming next week. Never ordered anything from CDN Tire. usually it’s a reason to go out for a look-see, like Princess Auto or Harbour Freight....

Regarding naming. Leading contenders are: Dizzy Disk TimeSlot FreeTime DatSlot DatTime AnyTime EasyTime

Some progress. Got some test plates back from the plater. Big one in yellow zinc and little one in powder coat 'cast aluminium'

Let me look. I likely have one. At least I’ll tell you the size of the hole. Making one should be pretty straight forward. Do you have the clips that hold the clutch line at this hole? I can send a set of these too.

I have some spares. PM me.

Oh sure I mention a stupid high price in a moment of jest and everyone goes quiet. There was a WINKY face people! Maybe there’s a world crisis that has you pre-occupied. That must be it. ? I would like to get a couple of others in tester’s hands, let me know if anyone else wants one.

This here is the tab that you see when you take the ring off. The sender body has the matching notch.

Oh I'll make all my money back when I go commercial. They are going to be $299 USD! ?

Have you seen the exchange rate with It's 1.16 right now CAD to AUD. Time to hit up their Datsun vendors. For the US, it even crazier 1.63! Huge advantage for us North American's

I have a couple of requests so far, and I've started the shipping process to send them out. I've done a bit of postal shipping estimates to the four corners of the lower 48. The packaging I'm using a bubble mailer, 24x18x1cm, 0.14 kg for the large plate. It's the same no matter where it goes. Given the usual payment method of paypal, I decided a flat $15 USD charge no matter where you are in the USA is the price to play for the few of you that will be the testers. Postal rates in Canada vary greatly, I'll quote actual rates as needed, and we can send cheaper e-transfers. In the spirit of the current reality, I will also disinfect the package contents before I seal the envelope.

Send me the email or PM me with your shipping details, we’ll get one on the way.

Did any specific machines catch your eye and not your wallet?

Send me an email to z240@shaw.ca and we’ll exchange contact info. I’ll only ask for the cost of postage to for a proto type Obliges you to test, feed back, send some pics, maybe some good press if you like it.

Jim Shim. Nice ring to it. Add it to the list. “About Time” is leading in my book. Quite an advanced concept really. The onesix has it’s own base, this thing won’t help.

I like that idea. A quick browse of laser engravers that can do steel are out of the price range of practicality and $$. I may be able to find a service that does it that makes the per item cost reasonable. I know! I’ll hand engrave and sign each one. Harder to knock off. I have one of these.

The danger is in the advance getting too high, retard is not an issue. Even things like spark plug wire tension might affect which way it would tend to wander. Maybe an addition “Stop” of some sort (small bolt and nut) to add to the slot CW of the main hold down bolt to prevent it wandering in that direction?

Since it works on the L4 as well, would have to include 1342 as well. Maybe not a bad idea to inscribe both. It does add considerable expense to have them engraved however. The laser cutter cannot be used to do both cut and engrave. I suppose I should engrave a trade mark as well. Trying hard to make this cheap and easy, not get rich or make so expensive that it won’t do all the good I hope it does. I understand the danger of feature creep. Add this, add that, make it shinier, etc etc.

Interesting point. If the main bolt comes loose, I wonder which the dizzy body would naturally tend to rotate? At least a good point to include in the instructions.

It’s laser cut. And it does need a way to indicate top and bottom. The “A” is still an “A” when it’s upside down.... Maybe it should be “R” . Maybe time to buy that desktop Laser engraver I keep getting badgered about on FaceBook. Name Possibilities: Time It! Dizzy Disk TimeBase TimeSlot AnyTime! AnyTooth That thing with the slots.....

Cool! I hoped it would meet with general approval. Seems that is the case. I sent some out for Yellow Zinc plating, hope they get back before Alberta closes all non-essential services. I can powder coat gloss black, Cast Aluminum, blue, red here in the shop, or supply them “naked” and let you do the sanding, prep and final finish. But first, of course, we need to run a contest for the best name for this thing. Free timing plate to the best three suggestions.

Could be plated, powder coated, Mac Tac’ed, carbon fibre wrapped, sponge painted, you name it. Questions, comments, etc appreciated. I can send a few of you a “test” part and you can tell me what you think if that works. I’ve been installing them on local cars, no issues so far. You can literally put the bolt in anywhere on the circumference. If the “right” spot is on a bridge, you just adjust the small bolt location to move it around enough. The only fly in the ointment so far is that there are two sizes needed. The dang distributors with points have a smaller inner and outer bolt circle than the later electronic styles. So I have a SMALL and LARGE version of this plate. Fits all the L4 and L6 distributors I’ve tried so far. Just have to have the right one. I have been thinking about a way to make one plate for both, but it means large width slots and washers to span the gaps. Works, but..... Anyway first things first.

For years, literally years and years, I have been frustrated over and over again when setting up timing on our L series engines. Whether it’s a fresh engine setup, or after removing and replacing the distributor drive shaft after routine maintenance, I’m very often off by one tooth. “So what” I proclaim, I’ll just adjust the timing by rotating the distributor a bit more. But nope, the slots in the plate are never long enough to allow that. Or I have a custom setup and need to put the distributor in a specific orientation, but can’t because the timing plate won’t line up as needed. I’ve had many customer cars in for various work, and often find the drive gear alignment is out have to sort out their timing issues. They may have been running crazy retarded for a long time and didn’t know how to fix it. I’ve often resorted to cutting and welding on extensions to the plate to give me more rotation. Ugly, but it worked. Whatever the reason, being too lazy to drop that sway bar one more time to get the oil pump off, or having a custom setup, or needing to get just the right base to suit the upgraded ZX E12-80 distributor you just bought but now can’t use, wouldn’t it be nice to just have a distributor timing plate that allows more adjustment? Maybe even cover any all possible Nissan distributor replacement options no matter your specific situation? No need to find the “right” base? Heck, just not caring if you have the drive shaft alignment EXACTLY right when you put the oil pump back on, would be worth at least 6 rolls of toilet paper, right? Maybe even a BIG jar of hand sanitizer! Not a week goes by when someone has been begging for help with getting the timing right here or on any of the forums or facebook. How often have each of us posted the famous picture looking down the dizzy hole with the correct tang orientation? You know the one. Well, I’ve had enough. I “Fixed” it. Even put an “A” and and arrow to show you which way is “Advance”. So what say you experts? Is is this worth making more of? Suggestions?