St3mpy

Just to clear the air, the belt didn't snap, thank goodness! But, I did almost have a crisis on my hands.

Quick version: My belt walked toward the engine, I believe due to incorrect parts. Out of pure luck I haven't had a problem for 2 timing belts. On the third, I wasn't so lucky.

Here's the full story:

Back when I first bought the car, i noticed that the timing belt area had dust under the cover. I didn't think much about it (since I was new to these cars). I replaced the timing belt/retensioed, ran it for a few thousand miles, everything was fine.

Fast forward a few months: I slap a new timing belt on after I do some major engine work. Everything was fine at the re-tension, as well as a few thousand miles of use.

A few weeks ago: I replaced the camshaft oil seals, and while I was there I replaced the timing belt in fear that oil may have damaged it. I get the new belt on and run it for 1200 miles, then retension. No problems.

Last week: I re-tensioned the timing belt, everything looked good.

Saturday: I attended the Milles event at Atlanta Motor Speedway. We got to do a few laps on the track, where I was running in the high 5k's. Good day. Drove home 2 hours, everything seemed fine. I open the hood to check things out, and notice this!



Oh no! Atleast it didn't happen on the track, that would have been terrible. So, I did some investigation, and here are the pictures:







Here is the weird part. After some searching online, I found out that this spacer isn't supposed to be here, which explains why the spacer has always seemed half-assed to me while I was doing the belts, because it's wrong! You can see in the picture that the spacer isn't square.




But here is why the spacer is there:




From what I've recently read, I should have a longer mounting boss as well as a nut holding in the stud.

Here is my theory:
I think my early car's oil pump was replaced with a late model oil pump, which has a shorter mounting boss. The mechanic realized the mistake while doing the belts, and rigged up my spacer, which is just a piece of tubing.

So why were my timing belts fine before the recent re-tension? I think it may be due to luck. My tensioner must have been placed at lucky spot on the spacer before hand, and not so lucky this time.


So my questions:

1) Are these facts about the oil pump differences correct?

2) And are the supporting theories plausible?


And, the final important question:

3) I should be able to make a better spacer and be just fine, right?

V2Rocket

there is supposed to be a washer behind the timing gear on the crank also..it may be thick enough to cause the belt to rub if its not there

St3mpy

I don't KNOW that it's there, but from what I understand, if it isn't in place the oil pressure will be low/non-existent. That said, the crank gear seems really close to the timing cover. How large should the gap between the gear and cover be?

St3mpy

I think I found what I was looking for. The shouldered nut is 13mm long, which is 8mm shorter than the spacer I found. The spacer didn't sit center on the stud, so I'm thinking the tensioner was skewed, forcing the belt in toward the engine.

I've ordered the nut, new stud and belt. Hopefully this will fix it.


Just to help others in the future,
http://www.944online.com/cgi-bin/for...num=1300335708
and this
https://rennlist.com/forums/944-turb...-adjuster.html