UPDATE: I think I found an old thread answering my question here:

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...ease-help.html

I am over the halfway point of installing a new timing belt and water pump, along with all of the timing pulleys. Everything has gone very smoothly up to now, when I was on my second attempt at adjusting the belt tension (after the grenade pin tightened up), I think I should have had the cam stop reinstalled when I did this, but I didn't I loosened the tensioner pulley to try again, and then the belt skipped with a big fluttering noise. This happened when the motor was not at TDC, though I think it was close to TDC. When I took a look at everything afterward, the cam gears were close to TDC but they were a couple of teeth out of time with each other (one was about 1 tooth past the timing mark and the other was a couple more from its timing mark). I think the pressure of the exhaust cam is what caused the belt to skip after too much slack was introduced at the tensioner pulley. I should have reinstalled the cam stop when I was readjusting tension.

I then realigned the cam gears to match the valve cover notches (which required a couple of degrees of rotation) and put the cam locker tool in place again while holding the exhaust cam tension with a wrench (it didn't want to be at TDC). Then I moved the crank gear slightly (less than 1/4 turn) to get it back to its timing mark (which also aligned the timing mark for the rear balancer pulley). I also made a slight movement of the front balancer pulley to align it with its timing mark (after double-checking that it was not 360 degrees off). Then I reinstalled the timing belt.

QUESTION: If all of those timing marks were aligned, top and bottom, when I reinstalled the timing belt, is there any way that the motor could be out of time?

I know the balance shafts are okay. I'm really worried about the crankshaft being in time with the camshafts. The flutter of the belt skipping was very unnerving because it sounded like a pinwheel flipping around, so in my mind I'm envisioning gears spinning wildly, even though I doubt that's what happened. Anyhow, how can I know for certain that everything is in time and I'm not going to crunch a valve?

Thanks!
Rich

 

If the timing marks line up, it's timed.

You always spin it by hand (which you need to anyways) to confirm timing. IIRC it's 6 full revolutions to verify the crank/cams/balance shifts are all in time.

 

So, I set the timing belt tension set with the loose grenade pin method. Rotated the crank 3 times and it was loose after 15 min, and then like 6 times and it was still loose the next day. Ran the motor for 20 seconds or so with the timing covers off to make sure everything was okay. Ran fine. But after shutting off the engine, the grenade pin goes through the tensioner piston with a *tight fit* and isn't aligned well enough to go through the other side of the tensioner body. Is that okay? Checking the pin after running the engine isn't part of the usual instructions, so I hope I'm just overthinking this. When I set the belt tension, I torqued the tensioner pulley 38 ft lbs with loctite and a new CDI torque wrench. Thanks!!!

 

The tensioner setting should be checked 15 minutes after turning the motor over.

And I wouldn't check it after running the engine, any amount of heat makes the engine grow and effects tension.

 

Cool, thanks. Car is buttoned up and ready for final coolant refill and road test tomorrow. I feel like that was a lot of time and money for nothing tangible in return, since all the original parts and belts looked just like new (car has 26k miles and the original belt and tensioner were changed at 15k miles 11 years ago, though none of the other timing components), but I knew that if the timing belt ever failed I'd be kicking myself for not doing it.

 

That's generally what a timing belt replacement is. The old stuff doesn't look "bad", but it gets replaced because of it fails it's gonna cost you $15k.

 

nice advice from letsgetthisdone.

 

11 years? You should look at it from a different angle, you got away with only having to do 50% of the maintenance you should have without a failure.