I am still trying to get my car working after the tranny transplant. I took the trans back out to reorient the flywheel, thinking I might have done it wrong, but it matched the punch marks (someone else's) AND the spray paint I put through the first bolt hole. It does not quite match what others have suggested, even the manual (a kind pro let me look at his factory manual), but when I changed the flywheel around, the engine would not even start.

So what I want to know is if anyone out there has a B230FT with the RPM sensor on the back, sitting on the bench (or otherwise easily examined). I want to know if the sensor is over the undrilled section of the flywheel when the crank is at TDC. That is what the factory manual seems to say, but it is NOT what my car was like when I took it apart. I would love to just look at an engine like this, but of course I only have this one, and the boneyard doesn't have one either.

Tomorrow, when it stops raining, I am going to serch for vacuum leaks and electrical problems, as well as checking out the distributor (it might have bumped the firewall when the engine was disconnected from the trans.)

Paul
El Rojo Grande, 1990 745ti w/m46

If you set the front crankshaft pulley to the TDC position per marks on damper and lower belt cover then the flywheel should be installed to have the missing space on the aperature aligned with the hole for the starter. The flywheel may have an arrow that points at the RPM sensor.

If you nailed the crankshaft sensor or otherwise bungled it, you'd be seeing the same problem. No start, weak spark, timing bouncing all over the place.

The distributor can be rotated safely without screwing up the timing, since the engine times itself off of the flywheel. Unless you were worried about having screwed it up internally, which still wouldn't matter unless it was destroyed.

I'm suddenly NOT as sure as I was yesterday about the position. From what I can remember, the timing blank was at the top... but when the position is marked on removal, you never really look CLOSELY at the thing.

You see, that's how someone like me gets nailed. With both automatic and manual, I've never stared at the thing very long, because I always etch a mark in the metal when I take the thing out. So I've never had the problem, like Dick has, where he's had to figure out where it goes by himself. I just put it back on the way that it came out, and voila the thing always starts right up.

If you're desperate, just put the flywheel in with the bolts lightly torqued. Rotate it until you get it right. THere aren't that many possibilities.

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chris herbst, five volvos.

Chris, you give top notch advice. We all have bad days. I have made a couple of erroneous posts myself, and Don Foster enjoyed feeding me crow for it. Check the archives for a post by abe on Friday, 11 February 2000. The answer is there. I can't get a link to click on for it.

It numbs the mind, but no, the thing is 90 degrees different. The long tooth is at 270 degrees or quarter to the hour of 12. The flex plate arrow is at the at the top or 12 oclock or 0 degrees, TDC.

I have been through this a couple of times myself and posted on it last fall.

Good luck!!

dick