Ford Fiests 1.8D crankshaft timing

 Not having had anything much to do with the Ford 1.8D engine, & not having the Haynes book until recently, it was not clear how the crankshaft location was achieved when setting up the engine to replace the belts.

After the pump drive belt snapped & the cambelt tensioner destroyed itself, the general feeling among those we spoke to was that the engine was damaged, however it didn't seem as it that was the case as everything was rotating smoothly...

A Mondeo engine came up on ebay cheap & local which we bought with a view to swapping them over, however, the amount of work involved in doing that prompted a re-think!

In order to find out how the crankshaft is set to TDC we removed the sump from the spare engine & turned it on its side... everything then became clear..... There's a flat on the web of the crank of #1 piston, the timing pin is of such a length that when it is screwed into its hole in the block & the crankshaft rotated the flat on the web contats the end of the pin when TDC os reached...

We didnt have the Ford pin & consequently didn't know the length it needed to be (or any facilities to machine on up immediately) so some thinking was called for...

As far as we could tell the Mondeo engine was still timed, so we pinned the camshaft & made a timing pin from a length of M10 studding & three nuts. One nut was drilled out so it acted as a spacer to ensure that the setting was referenced to the machined area around the hole rather than the "as cast" surface of the block. The stud was screwed into the hole until the end touched the flat on the crank web, the two nuts were then locked against eachother & the whole thin removed & inserted into the Fiesta block in the car. As the crank was rotated (clockwise) by putting the car in gear & rotating the wheel we felt it contact the end of the stud...

The pump & camshaft were then lined up & pinned with M6 bolts & the belts & tensioners replaced...