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Car started without tbelt

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cliff mccrary

Probationary Member
28
2
Apr 3, 2015
long beach, California
So I had a major brain fart and when following the vfaq I removed the crank sprocket with the belt off as that's the order it seemed like they wanted you to do it in. Well after I got it off I realized the crank timing mark is way off and I did some reading and realized I'm a dumbass. I'm replacing the cam seals and valve cover gasket so I removed the valve cover and no abnormal lifter height or loose rockers. Gonna reinstall everything, line up cam marks and lock them, rotate crank clockwise to align mark and install belt then do a compression test. Hoping I dodged a bullet, any smarter way to go about this?

Cams are pretty much still lined up, exhaust rotated about 1 tooth. Here's a picture of the crank, it turned about 1/3 from the mark.
 

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There's no guessing to it, put the belt back on and rotate the crank to get the engine at tdc. If everything lines up your fine, if the cam gears are slight off you might be ok, if they are no where close then you might be in trouble.

Get the belt back on, rotate to tdc, if alignment is off adjust it before you try to start the car
 
DO NOT ROTATE THE CRANK SEPARATE FROM THE CAMS WITH THE CAMS INSTALLED! YOU WILL BEND VALVES!

To make sure I am reading your post right...You have the t-belt off, the crank is not lined up with the timing mark, and the cams are installed at TDC. Right? If this is the case, take the cams out. Then you can rotate the bottom end, clockwise, to TDC. Then, reinstall your cams at TDC.
 
Another check you can do is with the cams out, crank the engine over by hand and see if you feel/hear anything coming out of the exhaust ports. If you have compression, you'll know. If not it will be easy to turn and you know you bent valves. That's what RRE told me to try and it worked. I felt and heard exhaust come out the ports. You could also do a compression test BEFORE you disassemble everything.
 
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DO NOT ROTATE THE CRANK SEPARATE FROM THE CAMS WITH THE CAMS INSTALLED! YOU WILL BEND VALVES!

To make sure I am reading your post right...You have the t-belt off, the crank is not lined up with the timing mark, and the cams are installed at TDC. Right? If this is the case, take the cams out. Then you can rotate the bottom end, clockwise, to TDC. Then, reinstall your cams at TDC.

If the cam shafts are at tdc then no damage will occur, he shouldn't have to take the cam shafts out

Hell to get the balance shaft belt out you have to rotate the crank slightly to sneak the balance belt out from behind the crank sprocket.

As long as the cams are aligned no damage will occur when you spin the crank
 
If the cam shafts are at tdc then no damage will occur, he shouldn't have to take the cam shafts out

Hell to get the balance shaft belt out you have to rotate the crank slightly to sneak the balance belt out from behind the crank sprocket.

As long as the cams are aligned no damage will occur when you spin the crank
No, No, No. There are still valves open at TDC. This is technically a interference motor, No matter where the cams are there are valves partially open.

The good part is that since we are so low compression more often than not turning the motor over without cams doesn't result in any damage, but it's not a good idea to do it.
 
No, No, No. There are still valves open at TDC. This is technically a interference motor, No matter where the cams are there are valves partially open.

The good part is that since we are so low compression more often than not turning the motor over without cams doesn't result in any damage, but it's not a good idea to do it.

:hmm:

:rolleyes:
 
I was always told that these are interference motors and back in the days if you did not change the timing belt at 60k miles and it broke the head and valves got destroyed! Back in the early 90s my friends machine shop had tons of work from broken timing belts destroying 4g63 heads.
 
I was at a car show sitting behind my talon in some lawn chairs. Seeing as I was the only DSM to enter I was stuck in between a group of Hondas, and two cars down from a evo 9. The evo owner did not strike me as a typical Mitsubishi owner, idk how to explain it but I can usually spot a true Mitsubishi owner.

So I'm listening to this guy, spill his details of his evo to a group of people. Apparently, according to said owner of said evo,


"my wife was driving my evo to work and the timing belt broke, and I only had it for a year. So I paid a shop over 7k for a stock rebuild. Then I recently dynoed it, and I need to upgrade to a stand alone engine management so I can upgrade my fuel system, for more boost."

I'm sorry I stopped listening to that guy after he came over to talk to me and was very insistent that my talon was his evos older brother.

If you opened a DSM fortune cookie, it would say " Wiseman replace timing belt many many time." I have a gates blue timing belt, and I'm changing it at 50k , just to be safe. I kinda feel dumb because that belt is 125 bucks, and still needs replacing at the regular service interval.
 
Let me get this straight....follow along people. If im reading this right you had all marks lined up then took off crank sprocket and I am guessing crank turned at that point? If marks are lined up then 1 and 4 pistons are at tdc. Moving the crank a little won't hurt anything. Now if it moved more that 180 degrees id be concerned as now 2 and 3 are tdc. Given that mark is forward what happened? Did you go forward 1/3or backwards 2/3?
Are cams locked with a tool or were/are they off their marks too? If the cams were off and you turned crank then yes there could be cause for concern depending on where they were and how far you turned crank. Just keep in mind if you turn the crank off its mark how is it possible to damage anything when the only way the tdc pistons (1 and 4) can go is down. ONLY if cams are not right could damage occur because with cam marks lined up you are not interfering with 1 and 4 at tdc. If you turned more than 180 with cams locked 2 and 3 come up and there is where you could have problems.
 
Let me get this straight....follow along people. If im reading this right you had all marks lined up then took off crank sprocket and I am guessing crank turned at that point? If marks are lined up then 1 and 4 pistons are at tdc. Moving the crank a little won't hurt anything. Now if it moved more that 180 degrees id be concerned as now 2 and 3 are tdc. Given that mark is forward what happened? Did you go forward 1/3or backwards 2/3?
Are cams locked with a tool or were/are they off their marks too? If the cams were off and you turned crank then yes there could be cause for concern depending on where they were and how far you turned crank. Just keep in mind if you turn the crank off its mark how is it possible to damage anything when the only way the tdc pistons (1 and 4) can go is down. ONLY if cams are not right could damage occur because with cam marks lined up you are not interfering with 1 and 4 at tdc. If you turned more than 180 with cams locked 2 and 3 come up and there is where you could have problems.

Cams were not locked, intake was spot on exhaust rotated 1 tooth counter clockwise when I took belt off. I'm fairly certain it went forward looks like about 110 degrees.
 
So what would you do in my situation?
No, No, No. There are still valves open at TDC. This is technically a interference motor, No matter where the cams are there are valves partially open.

The good part is that since we are so low compression more often than not turning the motor over without cams doesn't result in any damage, but it's not a good idea to do it.
 
Pull the cams off and then rotate the crank cw to tdc. This is the only way short of pulling the head that you can be sure you can line everything back up without touching any valves.

Once everything on the bottom end is in time, reinstall the cams with dowels up and timing marks horizontal.

If you want to be even more safe, when you rotate your crank (after removing cams), stop at 270 deg. Use a screwdriver to check that all four Pistons are at center stroke. Then reinstall the cams dowels up and timing marks horizontal. Then rotate the remaining 90deg to tdc. This will prevent 1 and 4 valves from accidentally hitting the pistons during installation.
 
Let me get this straight....follow along people. If im reading this right you had all marks lined up then took off crank sprocket and I am guessing crank turned at that point? If marks are lined up then 1 and 4 pistons are at tdc. Moving the crank a little won't hurt anything. Now if it moved more that 180 degrees id be concerned as now 2 and 3 are tdc. Given that mark is forward what happened? Did you go forward 1/3or backwards 2/3?
Are cams locked with a tool or were/are they off their marks too? If the cams were off and you turned crank then yes there could be cause for concern depending on where they were and how far you turned crank. Just keep in mind if you turn the crank off its mark how is it possible to damage anything when the only way the tdc pistons (1 and 4) can go is down. ONLY if cams are not right could damage occur because with cam marks lined up you are not interfering with 1 and 4 at tdc. If you turned more than 180 with cams locked 2 and 3 come up and there is where you could have problems.


Cams are aligned, as far as he has told us. He lined up the cam marks and took the belt off

So the cams are aligned but the crank is not at its alignment point



Pull the plugs out of the motor and see how far down the 1 and 4 pistons are.

when the crank is lined up the 1 and 4 pistons should be all the way up the chamber and you should see them pretty easily, going off of that fact we need to find out where you are at on the compression stroke

Post a picture of the cam gears to verify they are at alignment, my cam gears have 2 markings on them

If they look like they are half way up or most of the way up compared to 2 or 3, leave the belt off and rotate the crank counter clockwise back to the timing mark (rotate it as little as possible the picture makes it look like you need to rotate the crank to the left. Do it slowly to make sure the Pistons are coming back up on 1 and 4.

With the belt off you can slightly rotate the crank back to the timing mark.
 
Take this as you want but this is what I would do. I would rotate the crank ccw back to its mark and install the belt. If I wanted additional info I would do a comp and/or leakdown test after the belt was installed. If youre really that scared about it you could, as suggested, pull the cams and then do a leakdown. Given what you've told us I dont see a problem. Now if you had gone past half a crank turn then I might be concerned.
 
If 2 and 3 are higher it means the crank is >90deg past tdc. Rotating it ccw will bring 1 and 4 up and 2 and 3 down.

I'd still pull the cams out before moving it. Then you can do the leak down test too and know for sure what's going on inside before you start putting everything back together.
 
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