HI,
has anyone ever used a dial back timing light, and if so would someone please explain the advantage to using one ,and the merits of such a tool ?
thank-you, Russ

The idea behind a dial-back timing light is that you can see the timing beyond the narrow range marked off on the timing indicator (typically just 10 before to 10 after or so). But you don't need a dial-back timing light to do it. See this thread.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I just bought one after many years of marking my balancers (IIRC, one inch on a Mopar balancer equals 16 degrees) as my trusty Craftsman light finally died after 24 years of service I'll say this, it's real nice to enter you desired timing and just turning your distributor to zero. If you're doing some serious tuning, a good advance light is the way to go.

-James

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Don,t buy a craftsman one,it wasn't sensitive enough to work on point ignitions.

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V8?? We don't need no stink'n V8!!

Really............

My craftsman dialback never had/has a problem with points.

(of course it's at least 20 years old...........)

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

Don't buy the Harbor Freight one either. I bought one in an "emergency" and later compared it to a Mac light, the HF light was not consistent. Setting the dial at say 10, would some times be 8, move the dial and set it back to 10 again and it might be 12. That is the difference between a $35 light and a $135 light.


TopHat

That doesn't make any sense. The timing light uses an inductive pickup, clamped on the spark plug wire. It has no connection to the primary side of the ign system (points, mag pickup, are primary side).
My Sears Craftsmen light gave me exelent service for probably 20 years. When I broke the dialback control, the repair parts were n/a. Sears gave me a 50% off trade in on a new light, which I have been using for about 5-6 years, on every type system.

I have heard of some timing lights not working properly with multiple discharge ign systems (MSD, etc), but I have no personal knowledge of that.

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Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 170 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170
64 Valiant 4dr 225

Tophat's got an excellent point: if your budget is such that you can either buy a relatively good quality standard timing light or a relatively poor quality dial-back light, get the good quality standard light for sure. Shop around (tool stores, flea markets, pawn shops, eBay, Craigslist) for a used major-brand light; don't buy the Chinese trash sold by Harbor Freight and the like.

And if you're still running points, spend your money on an electronic ignition upgrade rather than a fancier-than-basic timing light.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

O.K. my 15 year old craftsman timing light died 5years ago so I replaced it with another.It would not work with the combination of breaker points and moroso blue max wires.My guess is the points had less power and the ign. wires had too good of shielding to trigger the timing light.Who knows,maybe the new timing light was defective,but I'm a heavy equipment mechanic,and work on lots of older stuff with ign.points.I got my money back on the crapsman light and bought a ferret brand timing light that has worked well for me. I believe upgrading to better wires is more important than the stock ign. system,assuming it's working well.Wanna waste time and money?,buy a $200-$300 ign system and put junk carbon core wires on it.Even new,fancy looking carbon core wires are junk to me, They will be ruined quickly leaving you with weird missfire problems.

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V8?? We don't need no stink'n V8!!

If that Ferret light is the one I'm thinking of it's pretty nice. I bought the Innova Pro series which looks identical (backlit display with rpm/advance/dwell and volt readout.) Found it for 100 bucks on amazon.com (it was about 200 everywhere else) and have been very happy with it so far. Worked fine on a friend's '34 Ford with a Hyfire-6 box and Unilite distributor. Very nice timing lights.

-James

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Uh-oh,
Well i bought a craftsman dial back light and used it today. 74 dollars, doesnt have the RPM readout feature like some of the others do.
It does what it says it was going to do, and ive got the motor timed with initial, and advance. Just came back from a run. Going to fiddle with the vacuum advance and carb next. Russ

Yes james,my light is similar to yours,other than mine is 5 years old and doesn,t have a voltmeter function.And you only paid $100 for yours?-OUCH! I paid "closer to $200"for mine Oh well,I use it every day,so it's still paid for itself.

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V8?? We don't need no stink'n V8!!

Heck, I recall seeing that Ferret light advertised for much more than 200 in my searches. I didn't even consider it since I don't really need mine for work anymore. The new cars don't have any adjustment, so no sense in buying a super nice one off the tool truck.

-James

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