Hi, im new to the forum and this is my first post. Glad to find a place with all this information. I hope someone can give me some insight on my question.
I just bought a 02 dakota 3.9. looks like they had it rigged to just get me home with a bad head gasket(white smoke ,no milky oil). o well, got a good deal up front so im not too mad. Tore off the heads (going to machine shop tommorow), decieded to go ahead with a timing chain while its apart. Here is my issue.

I left the distributor in place so it never moved. When I rotated my gears around to line up the marks , #1 up on TDC, the rotor button is pointing 180 deg out. However truck was running good and this was before removing the old gears. The original cam gear had two marks, one line, one dot. If i lined it up (Cam) line to dot(crank) rotor is pointing to #1.

So, i relined dot to dot put on new gears, chain, tensioner. I guess i wont really know till i put it back together, just hope that one of you guys could give me some insight. Glad to have this wealth of info!!!

 

my book ,for a V 6, shows that the small gear is to have the dot pointing up. the large gear is to have the dot pointing down. NOTE: in this setting doesnt make the #1 cyl at top dead, on a 318. on a 318 #6 is at top dead center. i think the V-6 uses the same chain as the 318. both engines set the dots the same.

 

hmm never heard that before, thought my manual showed standard deal just like all chevys fords and whatnot. forgot to mention this is my first chrysler product.
i think my manual is a chilton, but the balancer mark is at tdc on the timing cover ,with the timing gears dot to dot , also the #1 cylinder is at the top of its stroke, the rotor is pointed at maybe cylinder 4 on the dist cap

 

when you say #1 cyl at top dead top of stroke is right, but its NOT on compression. i dont talk about chevys, ill not wast my time. chilton? toss it, get a factory manual. they are hard to get. i payed $110.00 for mine, worth EVERY penny. if you need ill copy any thing you need. cell 316-516-7642

 

thanks moe, i downloaded the service manual from the sticky and will check it out. i see what your saying just seems like with that being the case the firing order would be listed as 432165 instead of , 165432 which suggest that #1 is the first cylinder in the firing order, gonna check out this servic manual some and call it a night, heads , intake , and rockers are back on so i hope i can finish it up after work tommorow, thanks

 

well the thing is that there is NO standard on cyl no order. my chryslers number the no 1 cyl is the front most cyl. chevys are the same. but ford does not, the front most ford cyl is NOT no1. course iam talking about V engines.

 

yeah ford #1 on right front , chevy on left front, but with both of them timing chain dot to dot ,#1 is up on compression. just got off of work, bout to get out in the garage and get started and hope i can finish up tonight.

 

started right up, runs fine! thanks again!