69gaugeman

Imagine if you will doing a timing belt tensioner rebuild.

You pull off everything and find that the tensioner bearing ***** are GONE. Not noisy mind you, but gone.... The two races were rubbing on each other and so the tensioner roller was offset by about 4mm and the belt was extremely loose.

(I heard a noise coming back from SITM when I got to windsor, but thought is was the car next to me as the noise would come and go. So I drive to guelph (320km) sometimes at speeds of 170km/hour with the engine like this.)

When I looked at the gears before I took every thing off I noticed paint marks on the gears and they were not exactly in line with the TDC mark. I though well maybe they jumped a tooth or two, no problem.

When putting back every thing I put it on the way it came off. It ran before so should run fine after right?

Set the crank to TDC and the cams to the marks. go to start it up and nothing.

WTF all I did was rebuild the tensioner......

Checked for spark. It was good. Checked for alignment again. No problem. I could feel compression as I turned the crank so figured it should at least try to kick when starting. I could smell fuel so I knew I had all the right components for it to run.

Prize to whoever guesses why it would not start.

Jack Riffle

I'll give it a shot. You put the crank gear on backwards........ask me how I know.......

Tampa 928s

I second that; and I know why you know

69gaugeman

Bingo. But the kicker is that so did the PO. I just put it on the way it came off. The PO marked the cam gears 180 deg. rather than remove every thing and do the job right.

I pulled #1 plug brought it to TDC and discovered the problem. I wanted to scream.

Jack Riffle

Actually in light of the title, I am going to amend my answer......PO put it on backwards and changed spark plug wires to make it run. Rod put everything back correctly and discovered it to be WAYYYY out of time........do i win the kewpie doll?

SeanR

That sounds like a huge mess to deal with. Ouch.

Dean_Fuller

Do you mean the balancer on backwards??? Crank gear I don't get?

Jack Riffle

Yeah, we mean the balancer......you can put it on with the timing marks being readable from the front of the car or reversed so they are readable from the driver position.....well, sorta....

Landseer

Someway to capsulize this to place it on Andrew's shrine?

Jack Riffle

I guess a photo offered up as a sacrifice might appease the 928 gods

69gaugeman

I will bring the offending bearing to Andrew for inclusion into the shrine.

My luck has been outstanding with this car.

I would prefer luck with the 6/49 though

Imo000

Rod,

BTDT, except my bother's '83 is still like that. We put the balancer on backwards. Then lost my first locking tool, a little while later (this was a few years ago) the car wouldn’t start so we checked the t-belt alignment and (for one reason or another) when we saw the obvious misalignment, we decided to re set it (balancer still backwards). Of course this made things worse and now we didn’t have a good reference, so I reseted everything (remember no locking tool so we can't take the balancer off to flip) using a long screwdriver to bring #1 to TDC on the compression stroke. We go the car running but I think it's a tooth or two off. He hasn't really driven it since but this winter I'll bring it over to my house and re do everything as it supposed to.

Why oh why didn’t Porsche put the balancer keyway right at TCD, it would make things soooooo much easier for us loosers!

dr bob

I think the moral of the story is that the balancer --looks like-- it should go on in the opposite direction to where it actually goes. All those little casting risers look like they should go to the back, towards the block. I don't remember seeing those last time I looked at the engine. But they are hidden by the pulley... Plus the pointer for the pulley is so darn hard to see, being big and red and screwed onto the water pump and all. How could we be expected to look for a 45º or TDC mark by it on the balancer on assembly???

When the balancer is on in the correct direction, it's somewhat safe to use a puller to help it decide to come off. There's a flange molded into the two pieces that will let you pull gently on the outside section without ripping the elastomer layer that joins the two sections. Put the balancer on backwards, and you are doomed to --gently-- pulling on the outside, fingers only, no prying with the little rollhead bar or even a screwdriver. This alone should provide an incentive.

On my balancer I used a paint pen to write on the smooth face "towards block' as soon as it was removed and cleaned. I still started it backwards the first time. Caught it before the first sledge-happer tap to get it started on the crank nose though.

docmirror

What's really funnny is that no one will actually time the cams to the crank the correct way.

Jack Riffle

Dr Bob, you are so right about the casting mark. It looks like it should recess into the timing belt cover. I found exactly ONE picture in the WSM that shows it, but you can get eyestrain looking at it to see the proper orientation. The lesson I learned was to take LOTS of digital photos, before, during and after repairs. That has saved my butt more than once.