Re: What Is Dwell??

Posted by JR2 on September 09, 1998 at 07:20:08:

In Reply to: What Is Dwell?? posted by Terry Dixon on September 08, 1998 at 19:34:07:

: I put my tack on my 1946 Farmall M and it has dwell on the tack as well as the R.P.M.. What is dwell, how do you read it,what does it mean, how do you understand what it means and fix if the dwell is not right?
: thanks Terry

Terry,
You got good posts. Dwell just has to do with how many lobes are on the distributor rotor and considers the 360 degree circle. It is, as noted in one of the posts, the number of degrees the distributor shaft turns before it actuates the opening of the point set, or how many degrees it 'dwells' before doing something. The number of lobes corresponds of course to the number of cylinders. On the old dwell meters there were several different scales to read for the different number of cylinders the engine had. It was probably the most accurate way to check point gap, which is all it was good for. The post referring to the old feeler gauge would be my choice. On anything other than the distributors which allowed for adjustment with the engine running it can be quite a hassle to get them right with a dwell meter. You'd have to trial and error the gap, then put the rotor, cover and cap back in place, start up, check the dwell and probably go back and do that several times. It's just not worth it in most cases. The feeler gauge done carefully will serve you well, as noted. Have a good day. John

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