Ok, so I may have made this much worse for myself than necessary. When I marked the TDC position on the belt, well, I marked the single point on the camshaft sprocket that was even with the TDC notch on the engine block. I did NOT turn the cam sprocket to the point where its notch was even w/ the engine block TDC notch. In the pic, it's actually off the left side of what you can see.

However, I did mark the crank sprocket extensively, as well as the belt, so I would know exactly how it goes on. The new belt is marked accordingly.

Of course, the engine doesn't stop at TDC when you turn it off -- so my question is: even though the cam and block notches aren't set, and since I did not move the sprockets when I took the belt off,if I put the new belt on exactly like the old one was, shouldn't it still work? It's not like the car knows that it's a different belt or anything, and when you restart your car normally, you haven't had to go and adjust everything back to TDC.

If I totally effed this up and don't know what I'm talking about.... well, what should I do? Would turning the camshaft while counting the number of posts that tick past the mark I made on the engine block, and then turning the crankshaft that same number of ticks keep the timing in sync?

Is there a way to verify that the 2 sprockets are in fact set together? Nothing other than these 2 things need to line up, correct?

Thanks for all your help guys.

[IMG]local://upfiles/17827/7CD35DF3E3524BE2ACD5035D3F5AA2C6.jpg[/IMG]

 

If you're super careful, and marked everything well, and are sure nothing moved, then you should be ok.

Before you start the car, put a wrench on the end of the crank, and do 2 full rotations. Take the spark plugs out for this, or you'll be fighting against cylinder pressure. Slowly turn the crank and feel for any substancial resistance. If you encounter resistance, its probably a piston hitting a valve, and you know something is way off. If theres no problem there, go ahead and start the car. Even if its not right (a tooth off or something) the worst you'll have is a poorly running car, at least you're good enough now to know you're not gonna smash up a valve/piston or two.

 

Well, had some things come up yesterday and couldn't finish the job, so nothing catastrophic has happened yet...

When I do get to the point when everything has been reassembled, aside from turning over the engine a couple of times, how can I verify that all the timing is indeed correct? It would suck to have to take apart the engine again to make small adjustments, or worse, have to pay the dealership to take it apart, verify the timing, then put it back again.

I hate to keep asking someone to hold my hand, but we all know the consequences of getting the shat wrong on these engines. Besides, maybe it'll prove useful for someone else down the road.

 

Anybody know why my tensioning element (the L shaped thing on the roller) isn't going all the way up? I pulled the damper pin but nothing happened.

Also tried to pull up on it but it won't move. Even tried loosening the bolt a little. crap.

[IMG]local://upfiles/17827/83A275BB1F984DAC9BF004E7995E58B8.jpg[/IMG]

 

basically you didn't do it the right way but nothing wrong with the way you did it apart from ( if you make a mistake your in deep **** ),

only thing I can think of is the tensioner isn't set and to do that the engine has to be rotated twice manually to check you have set it up right and no valve will touch then release the tension and nip it back up this will set the tension right

 

Sorry Dave, I kinda had a little bit of trouble understanding what you meant.

I have turned the engine over a few times, and it seems to be okay. When turning it over, I noticedsome resistance, but it was never so severe that I couldn't keep turning it.

Is the L-shaped element supposed to pushALL the way up?

 

it seems you did it right

[IMG]local://upfiles/12092/DC2F7A5555DE4B7CABB1D0B27DA99940.jpg[/IMG]

 

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[IMG]local://upfiles/12092/B2B96EB84A944B8EBFBAD7A024C3E904.jpg[/IMG]

 

I heart Dave's diagrams!!

 

I heart Dave's diagrams!! ???? you mean you hate them because you cant print them out and that's because they are digital images taken from my digi cam but if you really wanted I could print then them through the scanner save them to my HD the convert them to whatever you want and size but it all takes time