Im rebuilding a 65 nailhead that has been touched before, so I know Im not completely original. My timing cover has no timing marks on it. The crank balancer has a mark that the timing light would pick up, but there is no 'scale' to tell me where the balancer mark should be once its running. Can someone post a pic of their timing marks so I can see what Im missing? Im still early in the build, so now is the time I wanna catch this. It appears I have an early 50s timing cover? There isnt a single mark on it.
here it is, the extending thing to the left of the crank seal. 12 degress for dual quad and ~6-8 for regular engines, if I'm correct.
Some of the earlier nailheads had a stamped steel pointer that bolted on.... If the timing gear cover was swapped out at some point... it could just not have one at all.... he would then have to find one of the stamped pieces or go back to the original 65 cover.... What you can do is to use a piston stop and HAND ROTATE the crank to determine TDC , mark it, then from there mark the degrees on a timing tab that you make your self... you need to make it so that it uses 2 bolt holes so it will remain steady....
There are two different water pumps, the gasket kit I have includes two different once. the ear on the right side of the pump (when looking at it) is longer. I ordered the correct timing cover from CARS (hope its in stock). Gotta love rebuilding something someone else has screwed up in the past. We found this motor had thrown a rod in the past and was sleeved previously, so the cover might have had some damage to it and they replaced it with what they could get.
If CARS doesn't have it, try Russ Martin Centerville Auto in California. For Water Pumps try The Flying Dutchman in Oregon