That drawing is misleading and will cause confusion and disappointment if one tries to align the camshaft timing and crankshaft gears' index marks as shown. The crankshaft gear's index indentation dot (or sometimes the word "Ford") is supposed to be located one tooth to the RIGHT of the woodruff keyway. The drawing incorrectly shows the tooth lined up directly in front of the keyway. I have seen this same mistake perpetuated in numerous publications, including early versions of the "red" Model A mechanic's handbook, which I own and made a correction note on that page for the next guy who gets the book.
In the 1970's and 1980's, a certain disreputable Model A parts vendor (who shall remain nameless here.
) imported a ton of crankshaft timing gears with mismarked indexes. He sold them at cheaper prices than the better vendors did, so NATURALLY, Model A people ate 'em up. For years, cars that had these mismarked gears were sluggish because the initial timing was one tooth retarded. No amount of compensation in the distributor could make up for this. I must have changed a dozen of these crappy gears over the years, much to the delight of the owners who had been disappointed by their engines' poor performance. They couldn't believe the difference in performance improvement after advancing the timing gear one tooth!
Moral of the story: No matter where the crankshaft's index mark is stamped into the metal gear,
make sure you align the two gears so that the first tooth to the RIGHT of the crankshaft keyway is lined up with the dimple in the camshaft gear. If you line them up as shown in the drawing in Post #1, you'll be the caboose in any Model A club tour.
Marshall
