Degreeing the cam with the front cover on?

[FullSizeJeeper]

I have been researching the degreeing the cam thing pretty hard for the last week. Chasing a problem, this was one possible solution. With aid for the AMC forum and this board I found the real problem, but to the point.

If you have a degreed flywheel or add degree tape to the stock one, once you find true TDC. Could you not get a rough idea of where your cam is. Why could you not:

1) With Positive piston stop find true TDC on dampner, put on degree tape.
2) Pull valve covers
3) set up dial indicator on #1 intake pushrod
4) rotate engine and read the degree at the timing mark at .050 intake open/close
5) move dial indicator to #1 exhaust pushrod and find exhaust open and close degrees at .050 lift

Seems like this would give you a rough estimate (within a degree if you are careful) and would be a lot easier than pulling the front cover. Heck, seems like all you need to pull is a spark plug, valve cover and two rockers. Am I missing something? 111!!!

[82Waggy]

Should be close enough for a check.

As an aside, If you are running stock gears and never exceed 4000rpm, I bet you would find more overall pull with your Summit 8600 Cam if you advanced it to the 4 deg keyway - but this would require pulling the cover.

[FullSizeJeeper]

Yes, I'm thinking of doing that. But I may hold off for a while. I've spent a lot of engine hours over the last few months.
Thank you for all your input.