Pages 8A, 9A, 10A, 11A from that thread all show the holes in the down position. That idler is cammed and the least amount of tension one can make with it is to have the two holes centered around the 8 o'clock position. Tension will increase as you turn CCW from there until it over-centers around the 2 o'clock position and tension starts to decrease again. You can technically apply tension with the holes in the upper position but you would have to rotate CW and it would change the angle the belt comes off the crank sprocket. I don't know if any of this matters but it's what I see.

 

According to the manual the holes are supposed to be on the bottom. I just did this a couple days ago in my schools shop following the factory service manual on Alldata. You install the pulley with the holes on the bottom and angled towards the oil pump gear. THen after you properly set the tension they look like they do in that picture you posted where they are on the bottom.

 

Ugh well looks like I will be taking it back apart again...good thing I don't do this for a living, lol I would have been fired a long time ago. Well, I guess the legend continues...

Guess this also means I need to fix my buddies car and mine was wrong previously as well. Sucks that I was aiming for it being on the top. Looks like I managed to mess up both pulleys on this job...not my finest moments, I always do things to the t and it's all in the details. This isn't a hard job but its one you need to be careful with. Even while taking my time and trying to be careful I've clearly made a few mistakes but I think when it's all said and done I may come out victorious. To be continued...

 

on the bright side, it takes longer to take the crap off and get it out of the way then actually fix LOL.

i H A T E the water pump pulley bolts.

 

Thanks for helping me guys and sticking with me through these brilliant moments.

Jason- Yeah it's not a bad job but I just want to be done with it bc I have so much more work to do to the car before it's ready for this season. And cmon the water pump pulley bolts aren't bad! With the side engine mount out and the motor jacked up a little you can stick a 1/4" ratchet with 10mm shallow socket right on there. Then either hold another bolt with a wrench or wrap the serpentine belt around it pull tight and you should be able to break them free.

I hate the serpentine idler pulley bolt on my car. On my buddies we could drop the motor down far enough to gain access but on my car my downpipe hits my lower cross brace thingies.

But anyway I can't wait to get out of work and rip this thing back apart. Good times...

 

I have a long handle 1/4' drive matco ratchet that works perfect for the water pump pulley. Gives me enough torque to snap the bolts free that I can just hold the pulley with my free hand. Good tools are irreplaceable. Especially ratchets, impact sockets, and air tools. Everything else I have is cheap craftsman stuff lol.


http://www.matcotools.com/catalog/pr...TOOTH-RATCHET/


https://store.snapon.com/Dual-80-174...--P646282.aspx

 

I love a good ratchet (no ghetto).

 

Forgot to update this fail of a thread, lol

Anyway, I am proud to announce that my timing belt is done and the pulley is perfect and all is well in the world. They say practice makes perfect and aint that the truth. I pulled the car back apart Friday night after work and had it back together in like 3 hours. Now granted I didnt have to reset the timing or do the waterpump or idler pulley which involves taking a ton of crap off but still pleased it didn't take me that much longer.

But just wanted to say thank you to those who put it with my terrible questions. And to those who are reading this after the fact make sure you have your pulleys oriented properly. I was lucky and it really didnt cost me much $ but I could have been out a motor if the belt lost tension and the valves crunched.

 

coincidentally, i'm putting my engine together and just found out my hydraulic tensioner is bad. weird because it was fine before and isn't very old. i was bummed and thought of this thread LOL

 

Bummer. was it an OEM tensioner? I went with mostly gates parts this time around so keeping my fingers crossed everything lasts.

I have my stock one with 60k on it if youre interested? Guessing you'll just want a new one but figured I'd offer it to you, you'd just have to cover shipping...

 

it was actually a Gates part. i swapped it out a about 10k miles ago very bummed it was bad but better to find out this way than to have timing jump.

thanks for the offer on the old one, but 60k is right were i'd be changing it out anyway. i just ordered another Gates.

 

Bummer that it didn't last you very long. How did you notice it failed? Im guessing you had it off the car?

And yeah Im with you I chose to swap mine out as I'd rather be safe than sorry. But still figured I'd offer it up if you wanted it.

 

Just as an explanation because you figured it out already...

You turn the tensioner pulley CCW to tighten the belt because when the belt is trying to push it in the CCW direction, it has to tighten the bolt for the pulley to move, or change tension, because it will be pushing the pulley in the CW direction. This prevents the bolt from loosening even if the pulley does manage to slip a little bit under the bolt..

If you turn the pulley clockwise to tension the belt, the belt is pushing on it in the counter clockwise direction. It is much easier for the belt to push it out of the way because the bolt will turn (loosen) with the pulley's CCW rotation..

It seems silly then, that to tension the bshaft belt, you turn that pulley clock wise or it hits the crank trigger. But, that belt is not nearly as tight as the timing belt so its not as much of an issue.

 

rebuilding the engine. when we put it all back together, we noticed the tensioner arm was dropping and i was getting slack between the pullies. definitely a bummer. i could lift up on the arm and take the slack out. the tensioner would come right out, which isn't normal. then it would fully depress within a minute or two.
there was no oil leaking, etc.; it looks fine. i honestly don't know why it went bad.

 

That makes perfect sense, great explanation! I didn't even take that into account. Unfortunately the balance shaft pulley was just a f**k up on my part and a really stupid one that I didnt catch initially until I tried to turn it over by hand.

As for the timing belt tensioner pulley I only had the holes on the top i.e tensioned it CW since I remembered seeing a post that said thats how it's supposed to be. I should have read the service manual closer but hindsight's 20/20

Like I said though I got lucky. And I think the pulley being oriented improperly could technically necessitate a greater force to turn the crank givent hat the belt comes off the cam gear at a steeper angle but this dates back to physics lessons on pulleys that have escaped my memory at this point It may also be such a minute change that it wouldnt make a different and could have lasted forever like that. But the downside would be what you described regarding the possibility of it loosening up overtime.


Very strange indeed. During my whole fiasco at one point I removed my tensioner and put it in a vice to compress it and insert the grenade pin and I had to turn the vice so slowly to get it to compress. So if it went in or out quickly as you described then something is amiss. Better safe than sorry!