I can't seem to find anybody who knows what they are talking about when it comes to the timing tab location on a 1979 Chevy 305 small block. I am told if you are looking at it from the front it should be on the passenger side, or it should be on the driver side, or it is actually on top at the 12 o'clock position. If it is in fact on the passenger side where can I find a passenger side timing tab? And at the same time if its on the top where can I find one of those tabs? I can only find tabs that are for the driver side I have checked Summit, Jeg's, and my local Autozone and O'reilly's Auto part stores and can only find driver side ones. And also whats the best way to time it? Do I put cylinder #1 at TDC? Or I have heard its actually #6 that you time it to at TDC when trying to line up the rotor in the distributor for proper timing. I know this is a lot of questions but I am extremely frustrated with this issue and don't want to give up on the car as its one of my dream cars, its a 1985 Chevy Monte Carlo CL with a rebuilt 305 small block in it, not my dream choice of motors but the motor has less than 10,000 miles on the rebuild and the car itself is in awesome shape for being 20 years old and picking it up for only $1700. Again sorry for all the questions and thank you to anybody who can help me to regain the joy of driving my dream car!  

Welcome to the forums and can anyone help Demonoids out.  

Thank you mpayne. I really don't understand why there are forums when more then 40 people can look at a post and nobody wants to take the time to help out another it totally defeats the purpose of forums. Thanks again to anybody who is truly here to help others as well as myself.  

Forums are hit and miss, but this forums is usually good about people answering your question.  

every timing mark i have ever seen has been on the driver side of the engine. if you have this timing cover already and the marks are not lining up, then your outter ring on the harmonic balancer has shifted. get a new one. to verify, make sure #1 cylinder is at tdc on the compression stroke (both valves closed) your timing mark should be on the driver side of the veh. once the cylinder is lined up, with the dist cap off, make sure the rotor tab is pointing at the #1 cylinder. you can do it on the #6 cylinder, but only if you have the dist 180 out.  

Its got a new balancer on it maybe 2 months old, and with the #1 piston at tdc the balancer mark is at the 12 o'clock position, so I don't know.  

305's in that era had the timing scale in the 12 o clock position as well as the customary driverside 2 o clock position. However, they used the 12 o clock tab for timing the engine, so your balancer ending up at 12 o clock is correct. To ign. time your engine, dissconect and plug the vaccum to the distributor, hook your timing gun up to the # 1 plug wire, and aim gun at the 12 o clock timing tab, set to desired timing and lock it down. A general base ign. timing is in the range of 5-10 deg's BTDC. Hope this helps.  JW.  

If I read it correctly, he says the tab is missing. Perhaps it got left off at the rebuild. His question is for a source to buy the tab.  

If the tab is not there, you can either find another timing cover, as the tab is welded to it, make one yourself and adj. to meet the balancer line at TDC, or call Summit or Jegs and see if they have one that utilizes the cover bolts for mounting. However you proceed, make sure to check your new tab against true TDC.  

you can't go wrong w/ TDC on #1 @ compresion. that is the location to start from. go by piston posision w/ the plug out. if the harmonic mark is'nt whare you like it to b, make a new 1 to line up w/ the tab, in the most convienant location. after that just set the timing by specks.  

you can't go wrong w/ [bold]TDC on #1 @ compresion. that is the location to start from. go by piston posision w/ the plug out. if the harmonic mark is'nt whare you like it to b, make a new 1 to line up w/ the tab, in the most convienant location. after that just set the timing by specks.  

when you are checking the timing at  12 o'clock are you looking straight down behind the water pump for the timing tab. as far as the getting a new tab, the stock GM timing cover has the tab made on the cover, and you would have to replace the cover to get the tab. I hope this helps you.I think someone earlier had talked about the timing is at 12 o'clock also.

thanks
Lee