I'm working on my timing belt and got to the part of inserting the cam lock tool and have a few questions. I was expecting to put the engine at TDC and the cam locking bar to slide on perfectly. That isn't quite what happened.

In the first picture below, it shows that when the mark on the crank is in line with the arrow giving TDC, the bar doesn't quite line up. Now if I keep moving the crank a little further, I can get the locking bar on although it doesn't slide on, I have to give it a decent push. I would call it borderline forcing it on. The other problem is shown in the second picture. When the locking bar is 'forced' on, the crank is no longer in line with the arrow. It is tough to see, but the arrow is in the middle of the cutout, the timing mark on the crank is on the right edge of the cutout. I think this equates to less than one tooth offset.

So I'm wondering what is wrong here. I haven't read anything about the timing not lining up. I've been driving this car for almost 5 years now and it runs well. I would tend to think the timing was correct, but I'm wondering why its not lining up as expected. Since it did run well, I'm a little leary of moving things around. Am I just looking at a little belt stretch here or is this something I need to change. The car has had one previous timing belt change so there is a chance it was off a little from before. If timing was off one tooth or two teeth, would I know it for sure in the way it ran or can the car compensate for being off by one tooth and still run correctly? Any comments or advice would be very helpful. I just want to make sure I don't mess anything up.

Thanks
Tom

 

Bump - any input guys?

 

when you line up the crank mark, how far off are the cams?

I think that you are correct that you are off due to belt stretch. I would suspect that if you align the crank first, then remove the belt and align the cams with the bar, that would bring you back to "ideal" TDC.

There are ways to verify TDC by removing more "stuff" and visually verifying the cam positions but I'm by no means "pro" enough to tell you how to do that

 

That is what I was trying to show with the first picture. I lined up the marks on the cam, put the locking bar on the passenger side cam, and took a photo. As you can see, the bar is sitting maybe an inch high at the driver side cam which probably only equates to being like 1 or 2 degrees off.

When I can 'force' the bar on, the mark on the cam (second photo) is 1/4" to 3/8" past the mark on the block.

I'm thinking it could just be a belt stretch issue too because so far in my disassembly, it seems like it is definitely off less than one full tooth. I'm concerned though because in all the reading I did prior to starting this job, I never read anything about things not lining up right when they tried to install the lock bar . . . although a lot of writups are done without the lock bar surprisingly.

Thanks for the input 02A6Beau. I'm not pro enough to verify that my cams are in the right position either but if I don't figure this out correctly, I may become a pro while rebuilding my head. :-/

Any more input fellas? Ideas would be helpful and an account or two from anyone who has done their TB before would be great, even if its just to say that yours lined up perfectly etc.

Thanks
Tom

 

mine lined up perfectly (ok not exactly, I did have to use a little force to get the bar on but not as much as it seems for yours).

When I went to put the new timing belt on mine I did have to rotate the crank back about 1/8th of a rotation, with the belt off, to realign the timing tick. I think as long as you have the cam gear "wings" parallel and the crank tick lined up you are OK.

 

Well . . . its not like I used a hammer or anything. I guess I just assume the timing should be spot on and so the lock bar should slide in 'like butta'. Having to force it a little plus the marks not lining up exactly had me worried. My crank isn't off by 1/8 of a turn though, its less than that. That makes me feel a little better though . . . I'm just trying to be overly cautious.

I'll keep going, when I put it back together it should be pretty close to its current position. Again, thanks a lot for the input man, it helps.

 

I wanted to post an update on what I learned for those who may find this later in a search.

I finished the job and the car is running well. As I got further into the directions, I found out that the cams being off a touch was no big deal. The proper procedure with timing tools has you unseat the cams from the camshafts anyway to realign them with the new belt. The cams are going to get a bit out of wack just from belt stretch, but as I stated earlier, the little bit it was off was still much less than one full tooth on the belt. The important thing is to put the crank (lower pulley) at the timing mark, install the crank locking pin, put the cam lock bar on the cams, and reseat the cam sprockets with the belt in place and under tension.



Just a few other things I learned during this job:

I've read some people don't replace the cam seals because they are worried about marring the camshaft trying to get the seals out. If you are using a screw driver, I could def see this happening as they don't come out very easily. Pick up a seal puller from your local Advanced Auto for about $10, it made pulling the seal really easy and I wasn't worried at all about damaging the cam shafts. IDK what took me so long to get one, I've been struggling with the screw driver method for far too long.

The other thing that stumped me for awhile and was hard to lookup information on: Where does the crank locking pin go? Even the Bentley book doesn't give you a clue. It is on the block, driver's side. Get down by the oil filter and look up and behind the filter to locate the port. I used a U-joint attachment to help with removal and installation. Sometimes the most helpful picture is one from a bit further back so you can get your bearings. In the picture below, the large canister in the upper right of the photo is the oil filter on my 2.8 and the end of my wrench extension is on the cam locking pin installed in the block




Well, that is it, hope this can be helpful to some of you guys. Really wasn't a bad job. Only tools that I consider 'not common' that I needed: 15/16 socket for the crank, gear puller for the camshaft sprockets, seal puller. I also downloaded 4 sets of directions from various forums. None of them were exactly step for step what I needed, but using all of them, it wasn't too tough of a job. My one word of caution, get the timing tools for sure, but do not go through JHMotorsports. I had a lot of trouble renting my timing tools from them. I have another post which I will update shortly describing that issue ( https://www.audiforums.com/forum/sho...d.php?t=153586 ). Finally, I'm not on the forums that much anymore, but anybody with problems or questions looking for some assistance from somebody who has done the job in their driveway before, you can email me at info@tomdrill.com