Hey folks! I am rebuilding my 74 beetle 1600, and have 2 questions.
1, when I set the distributor up per the Wilson book, it appears that when the timing dots line up my pistons are in mid stroke on all 4 cylinders. Is this correct? The rotor points to the mark, but that would be more like MDC (mid dead center) that TDC. So I assume that when I rotate the distributor to point to 1 at TDC then all will be correct?2, this is a stupid question, but when installing the crank the #1 dowell somehow got a little off on the #1 main and pressed into the side half of the hole, 1/4 of the way into the metal and distributed some material into the hole. I removed a little bit of interfering material. I rotated the bearing until it seated fully, and went ahead and assembled the case for the heck of it. I know that I will need to replace this bearing before continuing, but the question is this:
If the crank rotates clockwise (facing crank pully), and the extra indention is on the left of the dowel hole (the crank is rotating the bearing to the right away from the indention) then will this cause a problem? Does the bearing get forced side to side during operation, or only in one direction? There is at least 3/4 of the material remaining on the indented side (to make it clearer if the dowel had gone all the way in the hole would have been widened by 50% to the left) Or does the fact that the pressure was applied incorrectly at all make the bearing useless?