This is the first time I’ve ever tried changing my timing belt/water pump and so I’m overly cautious about not screwing up the timing and wrecking my engine. I just got the belt cover off and have been manually rotating the crank pulley to try and get all 3 marks aligned. I feel like I currently have the crankshaft sprocket aligned with the oil pump (pic 1)and the right side cam sprocket aligned with the cylinder head mark (pic 2) but I’m not confident about the left cam/cylinder head (pics 3&4) alignment. Hoping a more seasoned veteran can share their thoughts. Thanks!
Store? I look down my nose with absolute derision at someone who would be so wasteful. I’ve got an old serpentine belt that I cut down and mended to OE specs. Ill be using that!
BeelzebubKringle, The marks don’t look exactly lined up to me. About one tooth off. Also, I see a white paint mark, then a stamped line (that I thought was the “mark”). Then on one of the spokes an arrow pointing outside. Long story short, we need more info. Lastly, I clicked your link to 3 more photos and only found one that was useless. Then other unrelated memes.
Try “teeth counting” method: the number of teeth between the center mark and camshaft marks is well known and easy to lookup over internet.
I used to have 2.2L subaru where I had similar 1-tooth misalignment and although engine ran, it had unstable idle.
mark looked similar to yours: hard to tell if this is 1 tooth off or not.
I used a sharpie to put a mark every 10 teeth to make it easier and in few minutes I had the suspicion confirmed, it was indeed 1 off.
Easy fix.
But, some people are incredibly… thrifty.
My oldest friend from my undergraduate days makes it his business to “shop” in peoples’ garbage cans once each week for what he terms “treasures”. For quite a while, his Dentist had been urging him to buy a Waterpik device, but he balked at the “excessive” price. Finally, he found one in somebody’s garbage can, and started to use it. Within a week or so he had a raging fungal infection in his mouth.
He also “washes” his dishes by rinsing them with cold water, and the result is that several times each year he has to pay a plumber to clear the drain of the congealed grease that results from his “money-saving” method of cleaning his dishes.
I keep telling him that he can’t afford to “save money” the way that he does, but he just continues to shoot himself in the foot with his penny-pinching ways. And, because I help him with his income tax return, I know that he doesn’t need to live like a rag picker.
Go figure!
I didn’t put those white paint marks on. I guess the last person to do the timing belt did. I’m just going by the stamped lines which is what I assume I’m supposed to do. The repair manual says to line the stamped lines up at least.
I’m not sure what the arrow on the crankshaft pulley is (that’s pointing right) but the white mark at the top is white paint over the stamped line (there’s another stamped line on the rear of the sprocket in the same position too). As far as the link that should take you to imgur where I posted the other pics. I just clicked it and it seems to work. Not sure if that gives you any more helpful info but if there’s anything else I can post that would help let me know. Thanks!
The OEM timing belts for my Nissan Pathfinders had marks on the timing belts. You aligned each mark with the timing mark on the sprocket. Guaranteed that number of teeth were correct.
