Resolved 1G Noise in upper timing belt area.

[tlikethedrink]

Ok so I just finished changing the timing belt/water pump. I made sure the time was true.
I was about to put it together when I decided to test start it. I test start it, idles fine. Only thing is, there's a funny noise up top. I figured it was the motor mount that i put in 1/2 assed. (It was just to be in case the jack slipped from the engine moving during start/run.) So I pay it no attention.

Now I have the car put together. I start it. Same noise. I've inspected it, it seems to be coming from the top. Not inside the valve cover tho. Outside like the belt was flapping against something. But it made the same noise when there's was no covers for it to flap against.

The car idles fine still. O, and now I've noticed there is a little more slack in the belt up top over the cam gears at some times. Other times it'll be tight. The car has a new tensioner/pulley. Belt is only 10k'ish old. I really doubt it could be valves as the car never was off time. It got a lil hot when the pump went out. But not enough to warp the head. Just enough to get the needle up to almost red. My guess is the tensioner

Ok, so I'm gonna take the car back apart today.
It seems to be running fine other than the noise. I'm still suspecting the tensioner, or the tensioner pully flapping around.

Any wisemen recommend anything to speed up/ease the process? So far all I can think of is setting the car into time while the belt is still on. That way everything's still on on time. O and zip tie the cam gears not to move while I mess with the tensioner/pulley.

Or should i just retime the whole thing?

 

[blcknspo0ln]

I battled this for a week a couple weeks ago. The best thing to do, and to have peace of mind, is to take off the covers and retime the whole thing. Are you getting any scoring on the timing belt? Is it getting really hot abnormally fast? There really isn't that much "up top" that could be noisy, it's usually the bottom end of the assembly that will make noises. Looking at the belt, is the belt centered on the gear, or is it leaning towards one way or the other?

Some key points you can check while everything is still tensioned:

Cam gear bolts on tight and undamaged.
Timing idler pulley spins freely when crank is turned
Timing tensioner pulley spins freely when crank is turned
Autotensioner is bolted correctly (2 or 3 12mm bolts, depending on engine)
Autotensioner is tensioned correctly (PLEASE check the gap)
Timing tensioner pulley was tensioned the right way (clockwise on a 1g, ccw on a 2g)
Oil pan bolts aren't digging into the belt (the one right below the crank pulley and oil pump gear; they are shorter than all of the other oil pan bolts)

after that:
Remove the timing covers and verify if anything is rubbing.

tips:
-BEFORE relieving tension, get the entire assembly at TDC! This way you don't have to fiddle with the crank/sprockets/cams just to retime the car!
-While retiming it ziptie the belt to the gears (providing it's in time). You must count 39 teeth from the top of the left alignment mark (on left gear) all the way to the right "notch" on the right of the right gear alignment mark.
-Put a small pin / nail in the autotensioner before you relieve the tension on the tensioner pulley
-If you release the autotensioner, use a C clamp and SLOWLY push the rod back in. I'm talking 180* turn, rest for a minute, so on so forth.

 

[tlikethedrink]

Got it! All done. No noise. Im happy. It was the tensioner pulley, it wasnt putting enough tension on the belt. I rotated it a lil bit its good now. Had to push the pin back in with a vise. Slow and steady. Used a hex key to hold it down.

 

[blcknspo0ln]

Great, glad to hear. Did you measure the tensioner rod gap? Please tell me you did.