At home I have gone through quite a few cheap meters like Sun-Pro, Actron, etc. I have had a MAC digital multimeter for years (probably a Fluke Meter sold by MAC) that has fallen off of fenders, been dropped, etc. I have experienced the biggest quality issues with multi-meters. My Craftsman light at home I am way more careful with and gets used much less, and continues to work fine. My Snap-On light has been knocked around pretty good in it's life and still works great. Quality - sometimes this is as subtle as the ability for a tool to withstand an accidental drop, how long it will last, etc. I'd still have it except it laid on hot headers and melted one too many times and finally was not close enough to the shape of a timing light to use anymore!Ĭlick to expand.Sometimes a little of each. ![]() Prior to that I had an el-cheapo HF flash only light for about 10 or 15 years. Accuracy seems fine, don't know what to compare it to but engines I tune with it run strong w/ no problems. I have had my HF dial back light for about 5 years and it works great. Sure, if I made my living with the tool, I'd call on Snap-On or Mac but that ain't my situation. If it doesn't work, HF has always given me a no-questions-asked refund and I bought a name brand item, usually made in Taiwan just like the HF one! No lose situation. 99 times out of a hundred the Harbor Freight rip-off version suits my needs perfectly and I saved enough to buy a couple more tools. My personal preference as an amateur who uses a tool like this maybe once a year is try the el-cheapos first. This has been discussed on this board a couple of times and opinions cover the entire spectrum some swear by the expensive lights and some swear at them! Ditto for the el-cheapos. Quality comes into play when you start looking at the dial back degree setting lights. ( that is a repeat story many times over /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shrug.For just flashing and & reading the little white line, any light will work. I believe in saving money where ever I can, but, anything that saves me time & allows me to make sure a job gets done right the 1st time, then I will probably spend the money on, back in the late 60's when that kind of timing light 1st came out I payed somewhere in the $275-300 range for my 1st timing light with the advance feature, in those days I probably used it 5-10 times a day, it lasted over 30 years until I lent it to my brother in-law & he broke it. Our Ford's reference mark for TDC( at least mine) I don't think there is enough metal to the advance side to make an 8½° BTDC mark. ![]() 30°-36° around 2400rpm depending on cam and other mods (this from memory, since I haven't built a vw engine in in 20 something years)on VW's many of them only had a block tdc mark & one mark on the crank pulley, (unless you bought an aftermarket crank pulley with degrees marked around the complete circumference. When we used to build hot rod VWs we would substitute a centrifigul advance distributor, for the stock vaccum advance distributor, that spec called for approx. A timing advance (checker) timing light allows you to measure total timing advance a specified RPM set advance on timing light & shoot reference pointer & timing groove on crankshaft pulley. There is a loop on the pulse adapter (for attaching an inductive pick up for timing light or tach), that puts a refererence electrical pulse to run a timing light with inductive pick up. It 'reads' the pulse/noise of the fuel being sent to #1 injector, similar to the way you hook a timing light to the #1 spark plug wire. My mac tools diesel pulse adapter (see my web page located in my sig), hooks to the #1 cylinder injector line as close as you can get it to the injector.
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