I installed aftermarket cams today and upon re-install of the timing belt I ran into what I think is an issue.

1. Crank and stock cam gears line up to all hash marks.
2. The timing belt is pretty loose between the gears. I can push down between the gears and the belt will flex downwards a good amount.
3. When I did the cams, I zip tied the timing belt to the cam gears so I know that I didn't skip any teeth between the cam gears themselves when re-installing.
4. I made my own belt tensioner tool by welding 4 M8 1.25 screws together. However, I didn't see too much of a difference when I tightened the screw into the belt tensioner.

Ideas?
My thoughts:
1. Busted tensioner? Where is it and how do I check?
2. Timing belt skipped a tooth down near the bottom but that doesn't explain why I have slack between my cam gears.

 

Manually turn the car over a couple of times (easier if you take the spark plugs out). See if the tension changes. If it doesn't, the tensioner may be busted.

FWIW, If I'm not mistaken, it is 18 belt teeth between the two cam gears (start left of the notch on the exhaust, and end left of the notch on the intake).

 

Cams rolled back slightly. Rotate the crank to take the slack out from between the gears, this will put the slack on the tensioner side and you good to go.

 

How many miles on the belt? The mits manual says to manual tighten the tensioner by rotating it so it takes up as much slack as possible, then take out the pin that holds the spring part. Then do two full rotations and see if slack is taken up.

 

Thanks. I'm gonna go count teeth.
I did rotate the crank a few times to make sure nothing was hitting and that the hash marks still lined up. They do.

I forgot to say I tried rotating the crank. No luck.

My car has 17k miles on it.
How do I access the tensioner? I used a long threaded bolt to push the tensioner away in order to do the camshafts. It shouldn't have the pin in it during normal use should it? I thought the pins were only used to compress it before re-install.

 

It does have 18 teeth between the hash marks on the cam gears.

Anyone know how to access the tensioner to take a look at i?

 

The pins are to hold the tensioner back after you compressed it with the tool you made (so you don't have to leave the tool in).
Did you not take the timing belt lower cover off? If you did, you can see and get to the timing belt tensioner.

 

I didn't take the lower belt cover off. It seems rather difficult to do.
Do I need to remove anything to get to the cover or just go at the 10mm screws, wherever they are.

 

What cam gear is that on your intake? It looks like your mark is on hte valley of the tooth, not the peak. Obviously, the stock ones are both on peaks.

The lower cover is a PITA in my opinion. You need to take the accessory belt off, the crankshaft accessory pulley (4 bolts), another pulley, then a gazillion cover bolts (actually, its like 7 or so).

 

The mark is on the valley. I have a IX so that's the MIVEC cam gear.
F I really don't wanna take off the lower cover. I was afraid I'd have to remove half the car to do that.

 

Ah, I've never paid attention to the MIVEC differences there. Cool.
It is a PITA, but it isn't hard. Wheel off, Wheel well cover out (prepare to get greasy there), 1/2 ratchet into the accessory pulley to swing it out, and put a big allen wrench through the hole to keep it there. The belt can then come out or slide away. It is sometimes a PITA to get the belt out - very little clearance in there. 4 bolts on the accessory pulley on the crankshaft and that's off. I think there is one more pulley right in the frame rail that is a PITA to get out (I put a piece of plywood on a jack under the oil pan taught, the remove the passenger side engine mount (3 bolts near your timing belt cam gears, the the big one through the mount). Then lower that side of the engine with the jack to get the pulley out. Then the several 10mm bolts attaching the cover.
Probably 30-45 minutes knowing how to do it, maybe an hour if its your first time.

I honestly think 4g63fanatic is correct about the cams rolling back due to the valve springs. In fact your marks aren't symetrically spaced from the valve cover marks.

 

Hmmm.
It's tighter now.
Maybe it's re-virginizing itself.

Car turns on. Everything seems fine. I left the cover off to inspect after it's been running a while.

Can anyone give a reference on how "tight" the belt actually should be?

 

There's a tool to check it's tightness. But generally, I try to twist the belt 90 degrees. If you can get the belt to twist, and feels like there's slop, then it's questionable. But a little bit of twist is ok. Or you can turn on the car and look at the belt. A good belt shouldn't have any fluttering to it, it should run straight.

Oh, almost forgot, you probably didn't use anything to hold the cams apart when you did the install/reinstall, and that could have been where your initial slack came from.

I usually use two open ended wrenches ziptied together in an X to hold the cams form turning themselves before I take anything off.

 

There's a 10mm bolt on the lowest left corner of the cover.
It's literally hitting the accessory belt tensioner so I can't remove it.
Do you need to remove the tensioner?

 

Check out Figure 22 of the vfaq here for old DSMs. I think the covers are the same.
http://www.vfaq.com/mods/timingbelt-2G.html
Are you saying the lower left B bolt is hitting the accessory tensioner?

I think you need to swing it more clockwise. Did you get the big allen wrench in the hole to lock the tensioner out of the way?