97A612V

the cams have been moved when the belt was off.. does this cause a problem? assuming there is no valve damage.. does it cause a problem to getting the belt back on correctly

DaveInSaltLake

Kday says no. My experience was a little different. See his post above about lifters pumped.

97A612V

so just to clear everythign up...i should get the cam tool, then set the crank to TDC then put the belt on and i should theoreticaly be good to go?

97A612V

what does that mean, lifters pumped?

E-Town

The lifters fill with oil when the engine is running. Makes them hard.

E-Town

The crank position sensor reads off a notch at TDC of the number 3 cylinder. The crankshaft holding tool threads into a separate hole from the the crank position sensor notch. This hole is at TDC.

austinado16

You've seen Dave's photo of the cam wings leveled out with the big holes facing each other.

You've been told that there is a notch in the crank pulley that will line up with a notch on the plastic pulley surround...or maybe it's an arrow head.

So very carefully, rotate each cam and the crank with the belt of, a little at a time.....sort of like they are chasing each other. You know, like the engine was turning. Do the crank a little, do each cam a little, repeat.

Once you get the wings right and the crank right, put the belt on. DO NOT START THE CAR!

Rotate the engine over by hand using the crank pulley bolt and your big 1/2" drive 15/16 12pt socket and a breaker bar. If you can make a full revolution on the crank without anything going clunk, then try to start the car. If it fires and runs that's good. You still don't have it timed right, but at least you're close. If it doesn't fire and run, you have the crank 180 degrees off.

But the bottom line here is that you absolutely must use the timing tools.....all 3 of them. There's the pin that holds the crank at TDC for #3 and there there's the cam bar you've already seen. There is also a puller for the cam sprockets. You can not have the timing correct without loosening the sprockets. Period. The cam holding bar holds the cams. The sprockets must be allowed to spin seperately during the belt tensioning process. Otherwise, as you tension the belt, the sprockets will rotate slightly and pull the cams out of wack by a long way!

El Paso Tool sells on ebay and they seem to have the cheapest prices on the tools.

Be really careful. You're in the position to relax and do this right the first time. Or screw it up and cause a couple thousand dollars in damage.

Remember to tension the belt correctly too!

kday

I rotated the crank 360 degrees with the heads in place but without the timing belt, so I could bolt the flex plate to the torque converter. The camshafts were in their "low energy state", i.e. most of the valves were closed. There was no interference with the pistons. However, it is possible that there would have been interference if I had tried to rotate the cams, depending on where the crank was at the time.

I am in a similar situation to the OP right now in that my cams and crank are totally out of sync. I will rotate the crank so the arrow on the crank pulley lines up with the line on the plastic guard, then insert the crank lock screw in the crank position sensor hole. Then I will put my 24mm socket on the cam bolts and carefully rotate them so their orientation matches the cam timing bar, and mount the bar. Then I will proceed with a normal timing belt job. I don't see any possibility here for getting the crank out of phase with the cams, since the crank lock pin indexes the crank uniquely and the cam bar does the same for the cams.

97A612V

thanks for all the help.. my timing tools are in the mail ill let you all know how everythign turns out

DaveInSaltLake

from Bentley:
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