Hey everyone, I have a couple of questions, but first a little background info. I bought my 1g and the PO said it skipped timing. So I bought the car knowing the valves were probably bad. So I get the head off and rebuilt because of the 3 bent valves and was going back together with everything yesterday.

My friend who was doing the timing belt and bs belt noticed that the sprocket for the front bs belt had a lot of play (Top one Circled in red in pic)

..I'm assuming this is not supposed to have play? He can wiggle it back and forth / up and down and make a clicking/popping noise..So what does this mean? For the time being, I am going to leave the belt off of that front shaft. I know it will vibrate bad because of this. Would I be able to drive the car to his shop like this so we can just do the Balance shaft delete? (about 3 miles) Or is there something more serious going on?

Also, I noticed that someone cut the wire on the knock sensor, why would anyone do that? Is buying a new sensor the best fix for this?

Thanks everyone hopefully someone can shed some light on this.

Don't drive car if the balance shafts are not aligned right and belt is not attached. Best to do bs delete before you run the car at this point. It will not just cause vibration. Not sure but a chance shaft hits crank or rods.somone will correct me. As knock better to replace it. So in case it is bad its already change and don't have to worry about it.

Lot of extra work just to drive it to the garage. I would just leave the front shaft in, go to the parts store and get a stubby shaft for a 1.8, gasket for the front case and change it out. 1/2 the work is already done.

If the front balance shaft is wobbling, the bearing(s) are toast, and you'll lose oil pressure from the open galley. I don't suggest driving it.

If the motor is outside of the car, do the balance shaft elimination now, it's not worth it to risk a whole new motor build by leaving all the worn parts in there, only to ruin all the new stuff you bought/installed on it.

use an oem elimination kit, don't use any one of the cheep flebay ones.

The motor is in the car, I only rebuilt the head and re-installed it..So what are my options here, I don't really have time to tear this apart at my house, but if I could get it to work (buddy's shop) We could do it way easier. If the bearing(s) are toast, how does one fix that? Pray the block isn't messed up and delete the shafts??

If the shaft wobbles, the block won't hold the block off bearings. The only way to keep the block is to tap the front balance shaft galleys for plugs through the acess holes in the block.

So basically, I may as well just pull the damn thing and rebuild it since I have no idea the condition of the thing..tap the front for plugs, delete bs, and have comfort in a new motor. Oh boy. I mean honestly if I'm doing the work for the bs, I might as well just do it all once and right. This project wasn't supposed to go down this way, but what do ya expect.