For years it was a running joke in our family that everytime I built an engine I invariably set it up 180 degrees out of time on the initial fire up. What was screwing me up was I would set the two marks up on the timing gears pointing right at each other and think that was when I should put the rotor pointing at number one. I couldn't seem to grasp that you had to turn the crank one revolution more and then you were at TDC for the rotor.

Ever since I learned the thumb over the # 1 sparkplug hole, I have never had a problem.

Don