Can A Timing Belt Being Off By A Tooth Affect Compression?

[doug2060]

The head has been shaved in recent months but would the 1/2 notch be cause for concern. That's quite a bit of slack for a head thats probably only been shaved once.

[Rooy]

Originally Posted by doug2060

The head has been shaved in recent months but would the 1/2 notch be cause for concern. That's quite a bit of slack for a head thats probably only been shaved once.

Is it really off half a tooth? Set the crank to exactly TDC (it's best to use a method to find true TDC rather than relying on the marks) and see where the cam mark is lining up. Shaving the head (moving the cam closer to the crank) will retard timing, which is not usually ideal. It of course depends on how much material was removed, which we don't know.

[doug2060]

Wow, This really pisses me off. It truly does look like half a tooth. I guess I just have to deal with it. The car still runs fine but I'm trying to get the best I can out of a 20 year old Metro... Maybe the head has been shaved too much over the years...

[leonbentz]

buying heads can sometimes be a pain. I bought a reman head that has no PC valve inlet. I'm still running it, but it's strange though. Different countries use different applications. My car doesn't even have an EGR either. It was built in Canada, so they are different. California cars are the real shits, because they have so much smog crap on them. As far as your timing deal though, I never seen anything like this.
Maybe you can check the height of yours, to another head to see if it has been shaved. You should be able to get an idea, without removing it.
How does the cam gear look? Check the keyway hole and make sure it's not oblonged. This can happen over time, if the bolt is not torqued properly. The hole for the pin in the cam pulley will get obrounded and shift the pulley around to make it a half a tooth off. It won't take much. If the hole is out of round by .030, then that can make it a 1/4" out to the edge where the teeth are.

[doug2060]

Now all you guys are going to be pissed at me. After screwing with this for a while I got my girlfriend to come look at it. She looked at it after I explained everything to her then she looked at me like I was stupid and went in the house. I thought she was mad because she hates it when I have her come out to help when I'm tinkering with the cars. She came back out and handed me my glasses (which I haven't wore in 2 years) and told me to look again. I'll be damned it was dead on. The good thing is that it had to have been off a tooth because the compression was back to normal. Sorry for wasting your time...

I'm going blind...

[leonbentz]

Hey it's okay. We are here to help. Don't worry, I'm going blind too.

[Rooy]

Ha...glad to hear everything's OK and the compression is back.

[doug2060]

Thanks, I must be getting old. Once I had those glasses on everything was where it needed to be. The way those timing marks are kind of off center to the right must have been throwing my bad eye off.LOL... I think it's time for a Lasik consultation or I can just keep my glasses in the tool box...

[DOCTORBILL]

How old are you Doug2060 ?

I've always needed glasses, but within about a year my vision became strange - streetlights
had bulls eyes and flashes around them as did oncoming headlights.

Finally it got so bad that an eyeglasses doctor told me I had Cataracts.

So I had them removed and occular implants put in.

My God - I had no idea !

My lenses were Root Beer Colored and had fleckies embedded in them - AGE....

Anyway - with glasses, "I can see clearly now, the rain is gone...." (song)

You get so used to the slowly developing cataracts, that you don't realize how
crappy your vision is ! I didn't realize how WHITE white was until the 'Root Beer'
colored lenses of mine were removed.

They were so bad that now I need sunglasses all the time so much light is getting thru !

My point?
Have your "eye doctor" check your lenses in your eyes for embedded flecks of
stuff and for becoming dark yellow colored - if you are over 45 or so....and smoked (?)

http://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/cataracts.htm
http://www.healthscout.com/ency/68/114/main.html
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cataracts/DS00050

DoctorBill

[doug2060]

I'm only 28. I got my glasses when I was 19. I rarely use them but I guess it's time to go to the eye doctor. This is one more thing to add to the list of vision related issues in recent months. I think my vision problems may be related to all these strange gray hairs starting to show up on my head. WTF LOL...