Exhaust Cam Timing Mark Off By One Tooth!! How Hard To Fix? (Pics)

[ChrisGo]

Well i have been having lumpy idle for a while now and have tried everything. Or so i thought... Come to find out the guy who did my timing belt is one tooth off on the exhaust side. What else will this affect other then idle? Will it hinder performance across the RPM band? I have a picture of the cam marks at TDC, as you can see the intake side is in the perfect position (checked with level across the center of the cam bolts). The exhaust side is off one tooth. How hard will it be to fix this? Will it be like redoing the whole timing belt? Do i need any special tool for the tensioner? Thanks in advance

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[19Eclipse90]

It doesn't look off. Rotate the engine by hand at the crank until the dowel pins below the bolt heads on the cam gears are at 12 o'clock (they are at about 6 o'clock in the pics) and go from there. You are NOT at TDC in the pic. Of course to truly check it all, you need to take off the lower timing cover to assure your lower end is in time with your top end.
But if you end up finding the timing is off, you will need to re-do the job.

 

[dacowgod]

The same thing happened to me when I first started into DSM's. I had a shop put in a new engine, and they timed it wrong, and could not figure out why it idled so badly. After switching every sensor out that they could thing of from the old engine, the decided they couldn't figure it out and I had a bad ECU and that was the problem. When I got my car back, I checked the belt to find the exact same scenerio as you are. NOT a bad ecu .

To fix it yes you have to take the tensioners loose, and you will more than likely slip the belt off of one of the bottom sprockets, so it will be just like putting the belt back on. It is not horrible, just takes a little time.

You can just use a vice and a small allen wrench to compress the tensioner and lock it in place with the small allen wrench. I have also used a big c clamp to compress the tensioner, but its more of a pain.

Make sure while you are compressing the tensioner you take it very slow and easy, as you can destroy them if you compress it too quick.

Otherwise you just need your metric socket set, maybe a small 10 MM quarter inch drive for the timing cover bolts. You pull off the driver side motor mount, pull off power steering pump, altenator, belts, ac tensioner and belts. and then remove the water pump and crank pulley.


A chiltons manual is pretty exact when it comes to timing i've found, but its pretty straight forward, I think there is a VFAQ on it too.

Just keep in mind, it is very easy to get the exhaust cam off a tooth. That is because of how it is positioned on the valves when it is at TDC. make sure once you get it all back together, you turn the engine over 6 times with a 1/2 drive ratchet from the crank sproket. That will ensure the tensioner has taken up the slack it will and will make sure all of the timing points are still in check. If you don't do it 6 times from TDC you can get some of the timing points to line up like oil pump and cams and crank, but your balance shaft will be off, or some other strange combination.

Hope this helps. Good luck


****Good catch also by 19Eclipse90, You are definitely not TDC, point those dowel pins up and see how it goes from there.****

 

[ChrisGo]

Well here is with the dowel pins up and still does not line up.. I am also using the timing line on the crank and it is on the T on the timing gauge on the block.

The Intake Line is directly underneath the ruler..

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This is without the ruler

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[NOSLO2PT0]

Yup. Looks like your exhaust cam is off one tooth.