About buttoned everything back up when realized I left the lower cover that goes behind the crank pulley and over the bottom gear pulley on the timing belt.
I’m considering leaving it off rather than doing the whole job again. This car requires most components on the passenger side removed and the starter buried beneath the air intake manifold to get down into in locking out the flywheel. Not to mention the crank bolt and the herculean maneuver to break it free / tighten up a new bolt.
I guess you might have to see it to say for sure the exposure. It’s pretty small. Just a little plastic dust guard behind the harmonic balancer.
Not ready to do the job about over again.
Haha…wow.
What are the risks here in leaving it off? There is another cover over the serpentine belt area that keeps this from being exposed from the road below.
As I’m typing, maybe I can cut it and flex it around the area…don’t know yet. Got to step away from it.
Appreciate opinions on whether it is worth spending anther day tearing back into it.
Thanks,
Yes, this is the engine and the cover. Yes, the plastic one behind the crank pulley.
It is certainly ideal to have it there as designed. But the thought of doing this job again has me leaning towards improvising. Maybe modifying it to go on it two pieces.
I thought I’d ask to see a few opinions on the risk level of leaving as it.
From experience I can tell you that doing a job over again so soon will make it go much more quickly. You’ve got all the right tools at hand and your memory is fresh.
If you had this work done at a shop and were paying for it you would insist it be done properly, right?
I was pushing the limit on my repair experience with this new water pump/timing belt. Pretty happy with how it is all going back together. Minus this oversight. Timing looks like will be right on after turning it over several times.
Definitely respect opinions on here on doing it right. Yes, this would be the ideal move. I guess I’m about wore out on this project. Not so much proud. Just tired. Posted here to maybe see if there were huge red flags to modifying this guard.
I can respect that there is no way to say all will be well with the repair long term unless it is done correctly.
IMO you should pull the engine and do the job right. You may be tired and not proud now, but as time goes in you’ll remember with pride the work you did and remembering how tired you were might even increase the good feelings you have for the work.
Ha!! I remember the 1st timing belt job I did with a reluctor ring on the crank pully, i had always installed the belt and then would start the vehicle to make sure it was in time correctly, well it took me a wile to figure it out, finally looked at the crank pully and noticed the reluctor ring and was like Well crap… I installed the pully and it started right up…
You guys with google and you tube have it so much easier now…
Haha, yeah, without a good YouTube video, would likely not have torn it down this far😁.
Part of the problem was I worked on it as I could over the past week, so some of the parts had not been touched for several days. —And a momentary slip of mind— Was not even thinking about that plastic cover since it’s not critical to the timing components and the major pieces of the process I was focused on with installing the new belt.
Looking forward to seeing it startup here tonight. Will follow back up with what I decide to do after cooling off a bit on the frustration.
FWIW, I’m a self-taught (sometimes with the help of YouTube!) DIY guy. I’ve gone as far as doing heads and whatnot. Every time I’m in one of those more complicated (for me), longer term things it feels like hell. And literally, like a week or two later I can barely remember it being a hassle, and realize that it was only a very short period of annoyance.
I’m also a self taught diy’er , complete knucklehead in fact. But when that sort of thing happens to me (not that infrequent) I always correct my mistake, but I might take a break before repeating the job. In fact I hold the record here for taking longest time to rebuild a carb.
Note: I’ve only replaced timing belts on a VW Rabbit and a Corolla. No Fiesta experience.
If you REALLY don’t want to pull the engine, you could try cutting that cover in two horizontally across the hole, add a hinge, and install it, with the hinge helping secure the bottom part that only has one bolt holding it.
