Mystery flywheel timing ball

[MalFE]

I was asked to start an EJ Holden with a newly installed rebuilt engine.
I found the rotor in the distributor was spinning on the shaft .
Rectified that problem but car wouldn't start. It was fitted with the electronic conversion and I eventually started the car with the rotor pointing to no.5 on the dizzy cap.
He asked me to change the dizzy to points as the car had broken down several times. He had new points and condenser but all other dizzy parts had been binned.
Thanks to Rob he was able to supply the missing parts and install them on the dizzy.
I located the timing mark on the fly wheel and put a dab of white paint on it.
The car still wouldn't start so I removed the rocker cover and turned engine to have no.6 valves rocking but the the timing mark was not visible. Retimed the dizzy and the car started straight away.
The timing mark was 1/6th of dizzy turn away.
I had a look at his old motor and it had 1 dowel still in the crankshaft.
I've never come across a problem like this after working on greys since the early 50s.

Mal.

[ardiesse]

Mal,

So maybe neither the new motor's crankshaft nor the flywheel had the locating dowel, and the flywheel was installed 90 degrees out.
Sometimes you have to wonder . . .

Related question, though: When installing the French locks under the flywheel bolts, which way do they go on?  Vertical or horizontal with the motor at TDC?  Or does it not matter?

Rob

[MalFE]

Rob,

By my calculations the timing mark is 60 degrees from the correct position. I've never tried to fit a flywheel without dowels but I assume it would be by 90 degree increments.
With the other question I can't remember whether I used a particular procedure.

Mal.

[ardiesse]

Mal,

60 degrees is hard to explain.  Without dowels, you're right, the flywheel would fit in multiples of 90 degrees.

Unless - the flywheel's had the ring gear replaced, and whoever replaced it didn't bother aligning the marks on the ring gear and flywheel.

Rob

[MalFE]

Rob,

You are right the ring gear must have been replaced. Incidentally we  had 48/215 and FJ taxi cabs doing up to 300,000 miles and never needed to replace a ring gear.