Timing chain gear marks up or together and spark plug diagram wir

The marking on the casing is factory rong, check your piston on TDC & adjust your mark for the teeth

You have to put compressed air into the cyl to hold the valves up (tool goes in place of spark plug)remove rocker cover ,remove cam, belt or chain !Put engine on TDC and mark valve timing dot,s on cam wheels so it goes back together the same , replace the seals one cyl. at a time,white out makes a good marker fo cam marks.

You can find the timing mark on the end of a crank shaft by looking for an indented dot which marks top dead center.
A flywheel is balanced and does not need a mark. However if the wheel you refer to is a cam gear (one or two gears depending on how many cam shafts your engine has) look for 2 dots with a tooth grove between the two dots. A matching drive gear will have a single dot aligned with a tooth on the drive gear. When put together the single tooth marked on the drive gear must fall into the grove marked the the 2 dots on the cam gears.

If you are just trying to time an engine, the belt drive pulley mounted to the crank shaft will have a single indented line. The line can get filled with dirt so you can't see it. Wipe it clean and fill with grove with something to highlight the groove, as with a white or yellow crayon or a dob of bright paint. Associated with the belt drive pulley, there should be a metal plate with line marks spaced on it, with 0 degrees (top dead center TDC) marked on it, When the engine is running, using a strobe light connected to your number 1 spark plug you will see where the timing mark on the belt drive pulley is compared to the metal plate with the timing marks.

Ok on cams and on big engine crank they all have either dots or arrows alls u do is line up the small ones on cams ok but if u moved big crank then u must set crank back to dead top center and u do this but pulling out the number one spark plug and putting a screw drive in whole and tap lifter then game some one turn crack until u fill the lifter at the highest point then that's top dead centrr

if u think it jumped timing u will have to replace the timing chain. to do this locate timing chain cover and remove it. then find #1 cylinder and remove spark plug. turn engine till the piston is all the way to top of cylinder. u can tell this by placing a screwdriver in hole and turn engine by moving engine a little at a time till u feel piston come to top. unplug spark plugs so engine does not start. remove the timing chain and gears put chain on making sure that timing marks on gears line up perfect. if u are off just one tooth it will not run right. put back together. if u don't have one go to auto parts store and get repair book for your explorer. it gives u step by step inst. on the project

diagrams I have show a twin cam set up with 2 balancing shafts. The marks on the cam shaft point to (left cam shaft 11 oclock the mark on the right point to the 1 oclock position. The chain will have 3 black links-- the top black links will be at the timing marks on the shafts with the 3rd black link directly at 6 oclock facing a mark on the gear. The balancer marks both point to the 1 oclock position with black links on each and the 3rd black link will be facing a mark to the 7 oclock position on the crankahaft gear. Everything is done with the piston at TDC no 1 cylinder so get it there before you put the cam shafts in position or you will bend valves. Crank shaft gear is not keyed to the crank shaft. there are dots on the right hand balancer shaft gears and these dots will be as the 2 dots on adjacent teeth either side of a dot on the meshing gear. I suppose that is all as clear as mud but if you got this far then you will see the marks and marked links on the chains

Is it possible to turn the distributor shaft 180 degrees and reinstall the dist ?
I am assuming you have spark at the plugs, just not at the right time ?
If the distributor has not been moved, and the rotor points to the wrong wire, you could have put the cam gear in upside down ?

just put the crank gear dot at 12 oclock and the cam gear dot at 6 oclock and put the chain on and make sure there lined up and you got it.

Same as any other v-8 dis-assemble the front of the engine to get to the timing cover. Loosen the oil pan bolts to allow the timing cover to be slipped out. unbolt and remove the timing cover. Turn the engine over by hand until the dot on the crankshaft gear( the small one) is at the top 12 oclock position, and the dot on the cam gear(large gear) is at the bottom 6 oclock position remove the old cam gear and old chain. Install new gear and chain with the marks in the same places. Re assemble engine. DO NOT be tempted to just put in a new chain, replace the chain and cam gear as a set, wear on the cam gear will cause the chain to be slack, which in turn causes the cam timing to be late.

Verify that the distributor rotor is pointing directly at the #1 cylinder spark plug wire tower on the distributor cap, with engine set to TDC on the compression stroke for the #1 cylinder.
If not, and you have not touched the distributor previously, you have not set up the valve timing properly. Recheck your timing gear and chain alignment marks.
Hope any of this helps you. Good Luck!
If you need a diagram of the timing chain and gears, email me a request at [email protected]