Balance Shaft Belt (B-belt) Tensioner Pulley Lip

[Silver71]

I have an early '95 and I'm in the middle of a timing belt job. I have the correct pulley, but I'm torn in deciding the correct placement of the lip side of this pulley (balance shaft tensioner pulley). The VFAQ notes that for '95, the pulley goes on the inside; however, the pulley that I removed clearly had the lip on the outside. Will someone who's done this job on a '95 tell me the correct orientation and if they've run into this problem before?

Thanks

 

[JusMX141]

Lip always goes to the outside to prevent the belt from walking into the timing belt.

 

[Silver71]

Ok, that makes sense, and the new one is currently installed that way. Then the VFAQ is wrong?

 

[Dsmkauai]

Ya outside don't know why vfaq says otherwise.

 

[Silver71]

Thanks guys, I'll leave it as is. Another quick question, I'm torquing up my timing belt tensioner pulley arm/bracket (not the pulley itself) and the torque spec says 16-17ft lbs I believe. But this seems really really tight, as in the arm no longer pivots on its shaft. When doing this job, are you supposed to be able to move it manually on it's pivot, or is it supposed to be stationary like that? If the latter, where should it be aligned? Swung all the way up? All the way down? Stumped.

 

[Dsmkauai]

[ame=http://youtu.be/7VIubwSxytk]DSM Graveyard 4g63 Timing Belt Tutorial - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Silver71]

Thanks for the vid, it's a good one, seen it before.

Let me rephrase my question. I removed my tensioner arm to replace my water pump. The arm sits on a large pivot and is held in with one bolt and a washer. I also installed a brand new timing belt tensioner and the grenade pin is still in it.

I now have two options:

1) install belt, tighten tensioner pully bolt, tighten tensioner arm bolt.

2) tighten tensioner arm bolt, install belt, tighten tensioner pully bolt.

What is the correct order to do this in? And once torqued, should the tensioner arm swing freely? If not, when is the correct time to tension the tensioner arm bolt, and to what torque spec?

Thanks, just want to do this correctly.

 

[Dsmkauai]

Do you have the special tool (long bolt) in on the tensioner arm? And the arm should be tight definitely. The process would be, install hydraulic tensioner and tensioner arm and tighten down. The special tool (long bolt) should be in place against the tensioner arm so it can't move back. Then install belt starting with the intake cam and working your way around to the tensioner pulley. Once the belts on and marks all line up good, you can tension the pulley properly make sure everything's tight and release the long bolt, and pull the grenade pin. Then rotate the motor 6 times around or so and re check timing and hydrolic tensioner to see if its in spec. Easy way to tell is if the grenade pin goes back in the hole easy. Also don't forget your supposed to give the hydrolic tensioner like 15 min after rotating motor around, then recheck the tensioner. This is to make sure the tension holds properly.

 

[ricktb]

just finished a timing belt job myself... I worked through a couple issues to get it done. One was when I torqued down the tensioner arm to spec, it seized up and wouldnt move. It turns out I had the arm in the wrong position, I had to turn the arm about 30 degrees clockwise. Then re torqued and it slid up and down with just a small amount of resistance. No problem to move by hand. I also used a torque wrench in inch pounds for accuracy. Just convert the foot pounds to inch pounds and do it that way. The hardest part was the timing belt tensioner pulley. On my engine you have to turn it counter clockwise to tension, however whenever I tried to torque the bolt down "clockwise" it removed tension from the pulley. I used an allen key against the shank of the socket to hold it in place as described on this site, but it bent my allen key. I ended up creating my own tensioner tool out of a pair of 11" 90 degree needle nose pliers. I dremel grinded the tips to fit into the 2 small holes in the tensioner pulley, and cut the right handle right off because it interfered. So with the 2 teeth in the holes I used the single handle to tension and it worked perfectly! I could literally hold it exactly in postion while I torque the bolt down. I also oiled up the bolt head to just break the friction between the bolt and pulley surface. Was careful not to get oil on the timing belt itself and wiped off the excess immediately. good luck with your timing belt..

 

[Silver71]

Yeah I also noticed that once I swung the tensioner arm as far "up" as it would go, then torqued it to spec, it moved freely as I'd expected it. Guess it's due to the fact that I hadn't installed the auto tensioner yet and the arm was simply too far down.

For tensioning the timing belt, I was underneath it putting the counter clockwise tension while a buddy was above the car with the torque wrench. Took us hours to get all the timing marks to line up correctly.

 

[Dsmkauai]

Dang guys your making it way harder on yourselves than it needs to be. I can do a timing belt by myself in minutes with the proper timing tools. It's so worth it to spend the $30-50 for the tools. All the problems you guys have with the arm moving and tensioner pulley moving could be avoided if the long bolt was in place and used properly. Save yourselves the hassle and order the tools, trust me its worth it. I mean heck I used to use a long prybar and needle nose to tension things by myself and have a easier time than you guys .