timing belt?

[leftyspike]

hey all just looking for some info, just did my third timing belt on my 95 eclipse and wanted some info from the more knowledgeable set here. i bought the car new in 95 and since this was my first Interference engine i dicided not to get 60K on my timing belt so the first two went without a hitch this time i dicided NOT to give mitsubishi 179 dollars for the hyd tensioner and went with a mechanical tensioner, wasn't easy to find but they are out there, any way after getting it all together, did 6 revolutions by hand to check my marks to see that they stayed dead nuts (they did ) put it all together and drove it down to put gas in it, 5 minutes from the house, and on the way home it clocked a CEL. hooked up the scanner and the code was timing belt one tooth off, the engine runs gr8, and i can't find any info as to how bad this is or if this tensioner is just to strong anyway i know it all has to come apart again, i think the cover will stay off this time. just thought i would get some ideas from those of you who know more about it than i. thanx

[SilvrEclipse]

I have not heard good things about switching to a mech. tensioner. People always seem to have problems with them for some reason. Also you shouldn't get a cel for the timing belt being only one tooth off. I had my intake cam off 1 tooth and the car ran great, didn't get a cel either. But the compression came up low on all cylinders so I knew something was off. I would check you timing and see if its dead on. Also a compression check should tell you if you are off at all.

[leftyspike]

hey jason thanx for the info....i did like you said and the compression check came out ok....7 lbs was the most differential i got...i don't think that is an issue with 155K on the clock. its wierd cause the motor pulls hard it just throws a CEL after about 5 minutes run time. i am going to check my marks again its just a pain havin to tear it all apart to do so. i got till feb to get it done i am thinkin about takin it to myrtle this year when we go on our golf excursion. i'll check this out this week and let you know what i found. i'll also write down the specific code it is throwing. Thanx again alex

[SilvrEclipse]

What motor do you have? What were your compression numbers? And post the cel code when you find out what it is.

[leftyspike]

hey jason....its a 420A and my compression numbers came up 155 low and 162 on the high side. the code it is throwing is P1390 according to my haynes manual that says timing belt skipped 1 tooth or more. all cylinders came up real close on compression as you can see. i thought they would be lower than that with the number of miles on it. up until now this is the first issue with timing. guess i need to swallow my pride and give mitsubishi 179 bucks for the hyd tensioner. it was worth the effort i guess. talk atcha later.....alex