It seems to me that the Brickboard forums are for people who need information and people who enjoy helping them. That's how they usually work, and I've always been grateful for that.

I am ignorant about many aspects of servicing my two old Volvos. Because of that and my profession (librarian)CB took some time to to pull a quote out of context from a different post and use it to put me down. His effort paid off- ouch!

In my defense, I had been referring to the Ignition System section of the Volvo 240 Service Manual published by Robert Bentley in 1993, specifically "To check and adjust ignition timing" on page 280-16.

The book says timing is to be set to 12 degrees. Figure 34 on page 280-16 features a line drawing of the timing marks, showing 12 degrees well to the left of zero degrees. Referring to that, my timing gun indicated a current setting of zero degrees at 900 rpm, which I thought was incorrect.

When I posted a question about it, forum members told me the timing on my car wasn't adjustable. Referring back to page 280-16, I understood that to mean my car was fitted with EZ-116k ignition.