Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting 99 Contour SE

I was driving my 99 Ford contour se, and it suddenly died. I took off the timming belt cover and it did have a fray in the belt. It was still attached, and it just turns over. It will not start. I think it does not have spark and before it died, I heard what sounded like a bearing or something breaking :/ I switch off over drive and right after that it seem to have died and made that werid noise like a bearing or something broke. My guess would be sense a good chunk of timming belt was frayed and broke off. it jumped some teeth and is out of time. Any suggestion would be great. It has a 105k miles and is the 4 cly.

Jason

Welcome. I would think the timing is off since the belt has some fray in it, odds are the timing belt and w/p haven't been replaced in the past, I got mine changed in the Mystique at around 68K-70K miles. Mine was starting to knock. Good luck.

Welcome.

TO check whether the timing is off:

(from memory, this may be considered a rough outline)

REmove acccessory belt
remove valve cover
remove spark plugs
apply a socket wrench to crank pulley,
rotate crank pulley until the timing mark on the pulley aligns with the mark on the oilpan, and you feel compression (with a gauge or your hand over the hole) in cyl 1.
THat puts 1 and 4 at TDC.
Now the ends of the camshafts have slots in them, they should both be lined up horizontally so that you could fit a straight edge through both at the same time.
(PS the slots are at the passenger side end of the camshafts)

Also see:

this thread for details about which timing mark to use on the crank pulley