3.0 Timing Problem / Question

[psnee1]

Hello All:

I have a 94 caravan, 3.0L, 135k. I just changed the timing belt and water pump and now the van doesn’t run right. There’s a rough ticking sound which is almost like the typical lifter tick, but it’s a louder and more of a harsh sound. It also hesitates a little off idle, and it stalled once during the test drive after I finished the install.

I suspect I messed up the timing, because I’m not sure if I put the timing belt on correctly. When I was putting it on, the tensioner pulley didn’t seem to put a decent amount of tension on the belt, so I pulled on the spring with a vise-grip when I was re-tightening the pulley's bolt, to make sure it had some decent tension on the belt.

Could this be causing the problem? Should I not have pulled on the spring? (and just replaced it) I listened to the engine with a long screwdriver put to my ear, and it seemed like the noise was coming from the timing belt area, and not from the valves, but I’m not positive.

Here’s another question I have. Before I took off the old timing belt, I lined up the crank and cam gears with their respective marks. When I did this, the distributor rotor seemed to point to cylinder 2, when the Hayes manual indicated that it should be pointing to cylinder 1. Does this indicate a problem? The engine was running fine before I took it apart, so I put it back together with out touching the distributor. Is there a reason for this discrepancy?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[RIP]

Have you checked the static timing using a timing light. Here's everything you need to know: http://www.autozone.com/servlet/UiBr...3d80128d86.jsp The correct timing setting should be on your emissions sticker under the hood or on the firewall.

Hopefully, if it's out of spec you can adjust it back in by turning the distributor. You'll have to adjust the timing belt if it's too far out.

The fact the rotor was pointing at #2 probably just means the last time the belt was changed the distributor had to be turned to bring the timing into spec.

If the ticking doesn't clear up you may have to pull the TB cover back off and investigate. If that's the case replace the spring. You don't want to quess with belt tension. If it's too loose it could jump a tooth and throw the timing off. Too tight and it will wear out too fast and break before it's due to be changed. Seems the belt always goes at the worst possible moment.

[psnee1]

After reviewing the Hayes manual last night, I realized that I did install the belt incorrectly. The thing I noticed is that the manual specified the order that the belt should be put on the sprockets (i.e. crank, front cam, water pump, rear cam, tensioner).

This morning I pulled the engine apart again (it went a lot faster the second time) and noticed that the belt was really loose and that the cams were way out of timing (almost half a rotation). I reinstalled the belt, this time in the correct order, and it seemed to go on a lot better. This time the tensioner seemed to be holding it with a good tension.

I think my problem the first time, was that I put the belt around the tensioner first, and that left too much slack between the cam sprokets. After I spun the crank, the slack worked its way over to the tensioner, where I mistakenly thought it wasn’t tensioning with enough force.

Anyway, the van seems to be running well now, and the ticking sound is gone. I’m going to check the static timing anyway, just to see how good it is.

Thanks for the help.

[RIP]

Good to hear you figured out the problem. We all learn from each others mistakes. We've all been there. Thanks for admitting yours and posting the fix. Not nearly enough do.

[coalminer]

When you said the distibutor looks like it was pointing to the number 2 plug, those caps are different in that if you look at it from undereath, you will see where the number 1 wire attaches, is not where the terminal under the cap is, you will see where they cross over each other so all 3 wires to the back cylinders can be next to each other. Much neater that way, but it drove me nuts one day because I could not get my van to run after rebuilding the engine.