[John Rogers]

When I had the four cylinder engines in my 914, the marks on the fan were used only for timing, nothing else and that was after the fan was checked and marked with a degree wheel. The way our mechanic and myself (he taught me) to do valve adjustments was as per the factory manual. All push rods, lifters (lots of cam lube), rockers, etc were all installed. The spark plugs were all removed and a dowel rod was inserted in the plug hole and then the engine was turned by hand to have #1 intake open and close and watch the dowel to see when it stopped moving out. There is a bit of crank movement so no panic is needed when getting to TDC and never back the engine up if you go past TDC. The cam shafts in my engines were not stock so each cylinder was done in order with the appropriate piston at TDC with the intake just closed. In the article on the Pelican site here there are some different ways to do it but no matter what we always measured TDC with the dowel, just make sure to remove them and make sure they are long enough to NOT fall into the engine.