Howdy all -- I'm in the middle of putting the timing belt on my 2004 Lancer ES.

I got everything off, but when I go to put the new belt on I cannot wrap it around the tensioner -- the belt is TOO TIGHT to fit around the tensioner.

As best I can tell, the tensioner is pushed back and locked in place, as far as it will go (see pic).

1. I verified the new belt is the same length as the old belt.
2. I verified the circumference of the water pump pully is the same as the old one
3. I verified the circumference of the tensioner pully is the same as the old one.
4. I even tried putting the old belt back on - made no difference

I spent all day on this and am seriously losing my mind.

What am I doing wrong here?

Is my tensioner mounting incorrectly? I've loosened it, pushed it back as far as it will go, and retightened it multiple times. But maybe I'm doing something wrong??

 

try to put the belt on the cam gear last

 

Thanks for the reply!

I did try that but it didn't help. I did figure out the problem though: I had the tensioner on wrong. I installed it from under the car and didn't put the top portion on the guide pin since I couldn't see it. So it wasn't moving back far enough. Once I re-installed it properly the belt had just enough room to side behind the tensioner.

Unfortunately, my timing had changed a bit, with all the fiddling yesterday. After I got the timing belt on I went to do two rotations of the crank and the engine stopped HARD. I wasn't sure if it was trying to build compression, or what, so I tried forcing it a couple times more - and that's when I realized the pistons were interfering with the valves.

I haven't got everything quite together yet, but I hope I didn't bend the valve when I was turning the engine manually. If I did, that would royally, royally, royally, suck.