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Timing Belt Issue

U

UmmScott

CEG'er
Joined
May 4, 2009
Messages
292
Location
Omaha, NE
Hey guys, thanks for all your advice for the water pump thread i posted earlier.
(95 2.0l contour autotrans)
Next problem: I got the timing belt spot on, but its not riding centered on the gears. Its leaning way too far in towards the engine that its actually wearing a groove on the waterpump body.

I have new timing tensioners and idlers.
I do have a theory tho: Theres a circular spacer that goes on the crankshaft. Does that go between the crank damper and the timing gear, or between the timing gear and the oil pump? They might be switched....

Any input, thank you..
 
I dont remember off hand but i believe it goes between the oil pump and the timing gear.

edit: according to the service manual it goes between the pump and the timing gear.
 
tension

tension

Although my experience is with the 98 and later vct cars, tension is critical. On the vct units too much tension will cause the belt to walk off the end of the pulleys. You might have the same issue.
 
There is an updated one-piece timing gear for the Zetec. The spacer would spin independently from the gear and cause wear on the back of the belt. You should replace that. The part number is in my timing how-to that hasn't been moved to the how-to's yet for some reason.

http://www.contour.org/ceg-vb/showthread.php?t=51692

What may intrest you is the step that explains how to set the cam gears to neutral. This is the most common cause of timing belt walk. Also, other have found that is all else fails, a small washer behind all of the idlers will put the belt back to center.
 
'Ford put a TSB that fixed some of the issues with the new belt walking off of the cam gears. The problem is that the new belt would bunch up between the gears a bit when the springs loaded the cams and the VCT was being actuated. The fix is to set the cam gears neutral to the new belt.'

That is not necessary. The gears will neutral themselves upon running, impossible for them not to. Note the middle sentence in that quote. That will ALWAYS happen in a running engine. I just turn the engine over more than one time while timing, say 3-4 times to even everything out. I never loosen sprockets anymore, indeed that can lead to losing exhaust sprocket to VCT phasing which makes another basket of problems. Loosen intake if wanted but leave the exhaust alone since engine ran fine before like that. I'm like Andreslobo, if belt walking, probably too tight. These things really require very little tension, indeed when belt near end of life there will be virtually none at all on belt. The ones I have removed I could get them off pulleys with no tools at all yet motors ran fine.
 
How can a gear being held to the cam with a bolt at 60-80 ft-lbs of torque possibly set itself neutral to the new belt? The only thing that has any give is the belt. Not setting the gears to neutral can cause premature belt failure. When you set the exhaust cam to TDC, the VCT hub is already in phase with the cam. Since the outer hub moves independant of the inner hub, it can't lose sync just because you spin it a few degrees. There is a tab in the VCT hub that locks into the cam spool.

If you use the index mark on the tensioner, it is not possible to get the belt too tight.

I've fixed more then one walking belt by setting the gears neutral. I've done timing on so many Zetecs that I can do it in half an hour. People that have never done anything but change their oil have replaced the timing belt on the Zetec using my how-to. The methods and advice in the how-to are sound.

Yes, there is some bunching in a running engine from valve spring loading. The tensioner is designed to compensate for this. But, it won't handle belt flop of improperly lined teeth. You don't always encounter this problem (meaning setting them neutral is not always needed) but it happens at least 30% of the time. I've had several people run into the walking issue. Sometimes, they just forget to put the tensioner tab in the backplate. Sometimes they don't pay attention to the index mark and they don't set the tension properly. Sometimes setting the gears neutral fixes it and other times the only fix is to use a spacer behind the idler(s) and tensioner.

As to not confuse the OP, you can ignore anything mentioning cam phasing and VCT, it doesn't apply to your Zetec.
 
Thanks, but a few things, my car does NOT have VCT, and Ive checked the tension. I didn't put any pressure on the tensioner when i tightened it, cuz i assumed that the spring on it would be enough on the belt so i just tightened the bolt.

Im still thinking its that spacer on the crankshaft, i think i have it on after the crankshaft timing gear instead of in front of the oil pump.
 
UmmScott said:
Thanks, but a few things, my car does NOT have VCT, and Ive checked the tension. I didn't put any pressure on the tensioner when i tightened it, cuz i assumed that the spring on it would be enough on the belt so i just tightened the bolt.

Im still thinking its that spacer on the crankshaft, i think i have it on after the crankshaft timing gear instead of in front of the oil pump.
Click to expand...
yeah, if the gear on the crank is in the wrong spot it will cause the belt to walk to be inline with the crank gear.
 
striker2 said:
yeah, if the gear on the crank is in the wrong spot it will cause the belt to walk to be inline with the crank gear.
Click to expand...

Duly noted, will take a look at sometime, wish i caught that before i put it all back together after replacing the water pump
 
guys what is neutral on the gears?

guys what is neutral on the gears?

So this IS a vCT engine. the original post was confusing what with a 95 car.

1. I have never seen the belt centered on the pulleys. If that is your issue, get over it unless it hangs over the edge of the pulley. Usually it is near the outside edge. That is okay.

2. If you install by using the tools, cam locator and crank locator AND you loosen both cam gears then you should be okay.

3. In theory the index mark on the tensioner should be correct. But if you are walking OFF the cams then set it just a little loose. You will be amazed.

4. And lastly. After removing the alignment tools and rotating the engine, it will NOT come back to a position that will 'line up'. The valve springs operating against the exhaust cam and the vct unit without oil pressure will rotate the exhaust cam relative to the pulley.

and what the heck in neutral the gears mean and how do you do it?
 
Not to be rude, but for the 2nd time, its NOT a VCT engine.


I know it doesn't have to be right in the middle, but its so far in towards the engine that its rubbing against the block/heads. Im going to put that spacer on the crank in the right spot as that might fix the problem.
 
andreslobo said:
So this IS a vCT engine. the original post was confusing what with a 95 car.

1. I have never seen the belt centered on the pulleys. If that is your issue, get over it unless it hangs over the edge of the pulley. Usually it is near the outside edge. That is okay.

2. If you install by using the tools, cam locator and crank locator AND you loosen both cam gears then you should be okay.

3. In theory the index mark on the tensioner should be correct. But if you are walking OFF the cams then set it just a little loose. You will be amazed.

4. And lastly. After removing the alignment tools and rotating the engine, it will NOT come back to a position that will 'line up'. The valve springs operating against the exhaust cam and the vct unit without oil pressure will rotate the exhaust cam relative to the pulley.

and what the heck in neutral the gears mean and how do you do it?
Click to expand...
1. Its a 95, so it DOES NOT HAVE VCT.

2. every time I have put the timing belt back on my old 97 the belt was centered and it stayed there. never needed to loosen the cam gears either.

3. I never used the spring to set the tension either, all done by hand and it always ran perfectly.

4. irrelevant since its not a VCT engine. the engine should come back to the same alignment every time he rotates the engine (or extremely close to it, if the cams require a very, very slight rotation to get the alignment tool to slide in easily is ok).
 
Listen to striker.

I find the spring on the tensioner to be rather pointless in helping set tension. I guess it's a trial and error kind of deal. Just set the tension so you have approximately 1/4" play up and down on the belt between the cam gears.
 
andreslobo said:
and what the heck in neutral the gears mean and how do you do it?
Click to expand...

I explain this in the how-to I linked him to in my first post.

So, I assumed that the non-VCT engines used the same tensioner as the VCT engines. Based on the way you are talking about setting tension, they are not the same.
 
Trial and error is what one does when has no idea of how tight something is supposed to be. Some people cannot understand that the spring is a constant to help one get that right without all that 'trial and error'. As far as setting belt tightness to '1/4" ' between the pulleys, that's a poor description of what to do. No idea of how hard to push to get the 1/4", ergo the figure is totally useless. One could push with one finger or an entire hand hard. Tension could run the gamut from too loose to belt walking tight and still get 1/4". Get the spring and forget all that crap........

As to the cams needing to be 'neutraled', that's a good one. Someone apparently does not realize that the cams are free to float on cam end, they neutral automatically as soon as the engine runs. Cam/sprocket assembly floats on cam end against tappet drag and moves advance/retard to suit position needed under belt. Only way sprockets could need that loosen/retighten was if cam geared solidly into some other assembly on other end. Don't ask me though, I used to set sprockets on printing equipment with up to 15 separate assemblies off one main chain or belt drive, all had tight timing to each other.

Fixing walking belt by simply loosening sprockets? No way. Something else changed there as in tension. If you have good quality belt with dead nuts tooth spacing overall and no variance between individual teeth, no need to loosen anything. Worse quality will have different tooth spacing either individually or as a set (belt too long/short), that may require loosening maybe one. Even if the sprockets needed loosening one is all you need, potential for error is doubled with loosening of both. Not loosening actually can be used to tell if your new belt sucks or not if you pay attention.
 
On a pre98, there is no need to loosen/tighten sprockets/gears! Why do people even talk about this? Take belt off, replace belt starting at crank working couterclockwise. That's it. Done. Ca-put. :nonono:
 
Okay, so I was wrong in my assumption that the early non-VCT Zetecs used the same cam gear/cam assembly (sans the VCT hub of course) as the later VCT Zetecs. I'll have to take a look at one of these so I can see how the cams and gears can move independantly of eachother and still turn the cam. Is is oil pressure or something the keeps the cams in sync with the gears? How does that not slip? On the VCT Zetecs, belt walk and pre-mature belt failure can be fixed by setting the cam gears to neutral. Ford suggests doing this (they seen plenty of belt walk too and fixed it this way) in a TSB they put out for the VCT Zetec. It also makes it a hell of a lot easier to install the belt since you don't have to fight it to get it to line up with the teeth.
 
the gears mount the same way, just slip over the ends of the cams and a bolt is tightened down to keep them in place. there is no issue with the gears spinning on the cams on any of the Zetecs, VCT or non-VCT.
 
Exactly. The engine neither knows nor cares what type cam it has. Maybe Ford just cannot train people adequately in the non-intricacies of these motors. Just because the factory and engineers say do it that way does not necessarily mean it HAS to be done in such fashion. All I do is turn over engine more than once to settle the belt in, that 'neutrals', if you will, the cams as much as they ever will. Once one knows to rotate cam forward against the VCT stop just before inserting the camtool, even VCT becomes transparent with no problems other than those made up by people who do not understand it.

One needs to understand that loosening the cam sprockets should automatically necessitate re-tensioning the belt, which is far more likely to stop belt walking than the act of loosening the sprockets themselves.
 
Hmm, maybe I'm just not explaining this well enough. The issue is not that the belt is or is not 'setteled' in. The issue is that there are small differences between the belt that was installed on the car and the belt you are putting on. The idea of neutraling out the gears is to get the teeth on the gears and the teeth on the belt in perfect sync with each other. This way, the teeth on the belt won't take any undue flex or load stress like it would if the teeth were not properly lined up. Otherwise, the belt will bunch up too much in the middle and can ause it to walk as if there was not enough belt tension. It is also clear that you didn't read, or at least remember, the entire step of neutraling out the gears. You don't install the belt like normal and then loosen the gears. After you remove the old belt, you loosen the gears, then install the belt as normal and then tighten up the gears starting with the intake cam.

Ford seen enough of this issue as to try to figure out a way to fix it so they didn't have to keep doing warranty work on new belt installs. This is the fix they came up with. I can't speak for anyone else here, but I certainly trust a Ford systems engineer more then anyone on a web forum. At least when it comes to fixing something that keeps them from having to do more work.

I ran into this issue several times before the TSB and I kept thinking it was a tensioner issue. After the TSB, it is not been an issue since. If you have done timing on a few Zetecs (probably any DOHC engine) then you should know that putting a new belt on is a real pain because it seems like the teeth don't want to line up. I've tested this myself. After fighting a belt on, I then removed it, set the gears neutral to the belt, removed it again and it went on easier after setting the gears.

You can all do what you want. I'll continue to set the gears in this way as long as it continues to work.

I went back and read amc's post about floating hubs and cams. I know how the VCT works. I can tell you that if you set that hub off one tooth you will get a P138x code. It is not self adjusting as you say. There is a large hole in the front of the cam spool and there is a tab on the VCT hub. The tab goes in the hole. At TDC the hole should be at 12 o'clock. A P138x code is common if you just replace the belt after the previous belt broke because the hub/hole is not at 12 o'clock when the new belt is put on. Basically, if you don't have that hole set right, the return spring in the VCT hub is not properly set and will not function as it should. While the VCT is reliable and durable, it is very sensitive. Even just using a 40 weight oil will cause VCT to work improperly. A small bit of flashing in the supply hole makes it goe nuts.

As far as belt quality goes, I only use Ford or Goodyear belts and even they have small differences in tooth width. If tooth spacing is an issue then that belt isn't going to last long even if you neutral out the gears.
 
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