1999 Protege 1.6L 135,000 miles. Car was running fine, decided to change timing belt, since car has so many miles. Before I pull off old belt, Haynes manual says line up camshaft and crankshaft gear timing marks. I set crankshaft gear facing straight up, with old belt on, but camshaft gears are not lined up perfectly, each on is off just a bit, not pointing exactly straight upward, like pic in manual shows. Pulled off old belt, pointed crankshaft gear mark straight up, and had to apply lots of muscle to turn camshaft gears to get camshaft marks pointing perfectly straight up. Seems like the way they wanted point when I pulled off old belt is the way the cam naturally falls into place during this stroke cycle, and it feels like I am opening or closing a valve part way when I turn the camshaft to set the marks, feels spring loaded, and have to hold it tighly while I slip the belt over the teeth while holding the camshaft gear in position with pointer facing straight up. Anyway, I put new belt on with pointers facing STRAIGHT up, and set the tension by adjusting the tensioner pulley to set deflection. I missed the part in the manual that showed how to set tension by turning the gears (1, 5/6 then 2, 1/6 turns) and using spring tension as guide for setting tension - oops! I started her up, she ran a bit rough and made a hissing sound like TOO much tension. I shut her down, went to take off valve cover to check marks, noticed I forgot to tighten spark plugs! Tightened spark plugs, restarted, but still the hissing sound. Pulled belt off, and put back on, this time I caught the part about how to properly set the tension, lined up the marks again, tightened EVERYTHING back up properly, started her up for another try. She started up fine and ran okay, but belt is slapping real bad, like tension in not right at all. Did I stretch this tough new belt by running it with too much tension for a few minutes? Doesn't seem likely, these things are pretty tough. Spring doesn't appear bad, not stretched, but could it still be bad with all these miles? Do I have to get camshaft gears both facing STRAIGHT up, even though they do not naturally fall on a flat spot on the lobe when I try to turn the gear to point the marks up. There are also notches on the camshaft gear teeth that are supposed to fall in line when the camshaft marks are facing straight up, but they will not line up exactly either. Does anybody have any knowledge about this? Running with plugs loose for a couple minutes didn't hurt anything, did it? Does anybody have a FACTORY manual, they can scan the timing belt section and send me???? This Haynes sucks. HELP!!Thanks

 

protege5.ugly.net


An old timing belt trick is to cut the old belt in half and leave the back half on the cams/crank....slide the new belt on halfway and then cut the back half of the old one off....nothing to try to line up.

You may need to recheck the tensionr but you didn't stretch the belt too far.

 

Now there's a hot tip!

Thanks,
Target