FredR

My assumption is that to do the cam belt you have to remove the distributor. As I noted, I am not at all familiar with the twin distributer other than knowing of its existence but as its name suggests it has [as I understand] two rotors integrated into one housing and one rotor drives the other with an internal belt drive. Now, if this item is anything like the type of distributor I last worked on about 30 years ago, is there anyway you can get the drive gear incorrectly indexed and end up with everything out of synch be it 360 degrees or however many degrees the error factor introduces?

ROG100

The pictures I have do not show the damper. Can you post a picture of the damper in place please?

ROG100

Fred - you do not need to remove the distributor to change the belt.

wigwampro

Thanks for clarifying. On this car, there is no need to remove the distributors to do the jobs we tackled (although we successfully replaced all of those parts about a month ago). There may be more to the damper being on backwards, though. Hoping to hear more from SeanR and Roger on that.

wigwampro

It is currently off of the car as we were trying to solve the problem yesterday but I’ll attach a picture at 11:30am PT when we have it back on.

soontobered84

A picture of the Harmonic Balancer such that you can read the writing on the edge will clear up if it's on backwards. I've done it and I know there are several others that have done it as well. It's a forehead smacking moment when you realize what you've done.

FredR

OK so we can "can" the dizzzy theory. You only changed the timing belt so presumably you left the cams and crank at some fixed position and put the new belt on with them in the same position. What exactly did you check to ensure they were aligned correctly?

FredR

That just proves I was right when I said I know squat about them!

I remember fitting the distributor on my 3 litre Capri sometime during the reign of Queen Victoria and got it indexed incorrectly- that would not start surprise surprise! I had a feeling the distributor was in the way of belt removal- no idea why. Presumably it is directly driven from the camshaft.

ROG100

3 Litre Capri - now we are talking about serious cars 8>)

FredR

Not the ones with a three speed Rogerbox! That thing was utter crap but the body styling of the mark 2 and the electric blue colour coding plus the grey velour interior of the Ghia model were great. Just needed the manual tranny of the 3 litre S. Had the car over 10 years then had to sell it when I left for Oman in 1990. Probably why I like the cobalt blue/ grey leather interior of the 928. I practically had to give the car away to get rid of it asking 300 quid in the Southampton Friday Echo classifieds- no takers. In the end I had to dump the poor thing in the auctions but I had the last laugh- when the cheque for sale arrived I got 850 quid after the auction fees were deducted- she looked after me to the end. As I walked away from the auction centre I was completely choked up- felt like I had abandoned one of the kids!

wigwampro

Please find pictures below. We are timed correctly and are going to give it another shot.

FredR

Is it my imagination or is that damper *** about face? Cannot read the imprints - looks different to mine somehow but maybe it is model year differences.

Managed to convince myself it is correct.

wigwampro

Success! She lives again! Thank you for all of your input, team! Now it’s time to set the MAF and retest emissions!

FredR

and the problem was...?

wigwampro

Truthfully, we don't know. We charged the battery overnight and retimed the belts so we knew we could try starting it again. Could have been either. Nothing else was touched.