Help, Timing Belt Advice Needed!

[John Howard]

Help, timing belt advice needed!

Okay, when I took off the valve cover of my 1995 GL 2.0 and put the alignment bar on the camshafts at TDC, the bar went into the exhaust camshaft slot, but not quite into the intake camshaft slot. Then I marked the old timing belt in three places on the belt and pulleys and transferred the marks to the new timing belt.

Today I put the new timing belt on. Again the alignment bar went into the exhaust camshaft slot but not into the intake. At first I said, "Leave it, that's the way it was." But then I thought why not try it one tooth over? So I did that and the alignment bar then fit into both camshaft slots with a little fiddling.

Would you guys go with the new position or the old position of the intake camshaft? The old belt was put in at 122,000 miles by a Firestone Tire Service company, not a Ford dealership. Did they get it one tooth off? My gut says leave it in new position, but I'm kind of afraid to. What would you guys do?

Another thing. The car has not idled right since I bought it 20 years ago, although it runs fine at highway speeds. Might one tooth off affect the idle? I want to think the alignment tool is the bottom line, but is it really?

Again, what would you guys do?

Thank you.

 

[John Howard]

I was hoping someone would chime in and offer some advice on the OP. My gut tells me to leave the camshaft one tooth counterclockwise to how the old belt was installed so that the alignment bar fits into both camshafts. But I'd hate to put it all back together and find out that I goofed. AI says one tooth off may affect idle, especially on the intake camshaft, and my Contour has always idled rough no matter what I tried to fix it.

Anyone out there who knows timing belt stuff?

Thanks!

 

[John Howard]

I have the old maintenance records for this Contour and going through them I see that 8 months after the 2001 timing belt replacement the owner took it in because it "idles rough." Another clue that the Firestone shop got the timing off by one notch on the intake camshaft? I sure wish this forum was more active. Do I have the last running Contour Zetec 2.0 in existence?

 

[SICILIANSVT82]

You do not, there are still many out there. As far as the forum is concerned, not many people visit the site anymore, unfortunately. I hope you can resolve the issue but i bet
Your right. The timing is probably off by one tooth.

 

[John Howard]

You do not, there are still many out there. As far as the forum is concerned, not many people visit the site anymore, unfortunately. I hope you can resolve the issue but i bet
Your right. The timing is probably off by one tooth.

Thanks for your encouragement. I'm going out there right now to work on it, but thought I'd check here first. Yesterday I turned the engine over several times by hand and the camshaft alignment tool still fit into the slots at TDC. I'm pretty confident it was one tooth off, but won't know until I fire it up.

Today I'm torquing the crankshaft bolt but am NOT going to jam the starter ring gear with a screwdriver that seems to be the common method. Instead I'm using the "rope trick" of feeding some rope down the sparkplug hole before TDC on the intake stroke and using the piston to lock the engine. AI says that's a less risky way for not breaking something.

Thanks!