Anyone know if a timing gear for the crank was installed 4' retarded it would show 4' retarded on the balancer? My buddy put a new cam and timing chain in, and once he put the balancer on noticed instead of it being at TDC, it's at 4' retarded.

TDC is determined by the highest position of the piston. The balancer's position is determined by the woodruff. Hence, TDC is fixed and not influenced by the position of the camshaft.

Your valve timing has been moved 4 degrees though.

I got it apart today and sure enough it was set at the square mark, which would be retard. I took off the gear, turned it to the circle mark and put it back on.I had to spin the crank a little bit backwards to get the dots lined back up. And sure enough, TDC on the timing tab!

Originally posted by 69chevelle383:
I got it apart today and sure enough it was set at the square mark, which would be retard. I took off the gear, turned it to the circle mark and put it back on.I had to spin the crank a little bit backwards to get the dots lined back up. And sure enough, TDC on the timing tab! Weird, I've never heard of that before.

The cam is located in relation to the crank, not the other way around. In effect, the crank, the damper, and the pistons move as one unit. They have a fixed relationship. The timing chain has no influence on this. As I said, the cam is positioned in relation to the crank. The crank will always be in the same position when number one pistion is a TDC. The dampers is hard located to the crank by the keyway. The cam could be in any position (even 90º advanced or retarded, but the engine wouldn't run with it there) and crank would still be in the same place at #1 TDC.

You just rotated the crank 4º. #1 is no longer at TDC, if it was when you started.

As soon as I saw that the gear was on wrong (retard instead of straight up)I pulled it and put it straight up, and put it all back together. So I didn't really check it out much, but the only thing I can think of is that there is a different amount of spacing between each timing mark and key slot? Because if they were all the same, then what would it matter which mark was used, they would all end up the same. Anyone have one around to check and see?
Anyway, we got the car back running again and between that and getting the timing set, it made quite an improvement.