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I think this one is a tough one, which is why I’m here.
My Car: 1995 Plymouth Neon, SODC
Original issue; broken water pump. In order to replace the pump, you need to take off all of the accessories on the passenger side of the engine, the tire, the fender, all belts, remove the mount, drop the engine (in order to get the one engine mount bolt off), remove the timing belt cover, and remove the tension mount, along with the rear cover.
I bought a Gates kit that includes the pump, camshaft and crankshaft gasket, timing belt, and mechanical tensioner. The old hydraulic tensioner looked like it wasn’t putting that much tension on anymore, and everything I read said to replace it. In this case, I replaced the hydraulic one with the mechanical one. Apparently, old Neon’s had a problem where the hydraulic tensioners would start to fail, so Plymouth/Dodge changed over to new mechanical ones after the first generation. They make the kits in a way that you can just replace the hydraulic ones with the mechanical ones.After installing the tensioner, I put in the belt and set the tension. Everything looked great!
As suggested by the manual, I turned the crankshaft by hand two full revolutions to make sure that my camshaft and cranksaft lined up on their marks after one full revolution.
The good news is that the marks matched.
The bad news is that after the second turn, I could tell that the belt was starting to come off of the tensioner and then the camshaft gear… towards me. As much as a 1/4 inch after just two rotations.
Is there anything I might have missed, or any suggestion that anyone has of what might be the problem?
If a photo or video would help, I could do that too.While I’m here: Eric, you have saved me a world full of headaches. I appreciate your knowledge!
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Thanks for the video, CM. But they don’t answer the question:
What do I look for when the timing belt seems to be coming off?
There has to be something that I can check to see if I did it wrong. Is it the idler? The camshaft gear?
Everything *looks* right, but clearly, something is off. I’ll try to get some video of it tomorrow, so that you can see what I mean.-John
There appears to be a guide washer or flange in front of the timing belt.
I have to assume that this is in place to prevent the timing belt from “walking” off the gears.
Look at the second video at 10:45 where it shows the belt held in place by the flange or washer.Have you perhaps not installed this guide washer prior to hand turning the motor?
Or have it mounted backwards where the flange is behind the timing belt?Hey Ngithflyr; yes, there is a flange there. Its part of the crankshaft gear.
That’s not where its “walking.” Its walking from the idler roller to the camshaft gear.Odd …
Might try cranking the motor over by hand a few times and see exactly how far the belt moves.
If it does not go past the edge of the gear it should be ok.
If not I would guess that either,1 The idler roller is not installed correctly or it is not seated flush.
2 The idler roller bearing is defectiveI know the timing belt on my SUV settles just a hair before the edge of the tensioner roller.
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