symptoms of the timing belt being off 1 degree off?

dirtmover · **Posted:** Wed Nov 11, 2015 2:11 pm

JoeStretch wrote:

Finally ordered a timing belt pin kit off of ebay, after a few rotations of the crankshaft the intake and exhaust pins go in both cams and i am able to get the the pin through the crankshaft witness hole after bumping the ratchet a hair. What concerns me is on the TB tensioner there is a wierd notch taken out of it by the spring pin. I dont think that extra notch should be there,

When i push on the belt , the tab with the notch on the tensioner rotates CW over an inch. There also seems to be a almost an inch of slop on the lower part of the belt, not tight like in the youtube videos i watched. Should there be this much movement in the tensioner? Or any movement at all?

I Think that i need a new tensioner,any thoughts? I dont think the belt was tensioned properly and i may be one tooth of on the crankshaft, ill try to post a link to a short video that shows how much play is in the belt.

No, this isn't correct. There shouldn't be any play or more than a barely perceptible movement of the tensioner when you push on the belt. When you release it does the the tensioner go back to it's original position? Either you tensioner has developed a fault or your trusted mechanic hasn't installed it properly in the first place..

papaindigo · **Posted:** Wed Nov 11, 2015 2:18 pm

Yes you need a new TB tensioner. No the belt is not properly tensioned. Whether or not it was ever properly tensioned is unknown either a) whomever did the work never set the tension at all or b) if they did they did not lock the tensioner bolt down. The TB is bouncing all over the place on the loose tensioner hence the spring is wearing a notch into the back of the tensioner.

I suspect but don't know that the belt has jumped at least 1 tooth at the crank, maybe more. In addition to redoing the TB job with a new belt and tensioner I'd recommend pulling the valve cover and inspecting the lifters.

olypopper · **Posted:** Wed Nov 11, 2015 3:19 pm

That tensioner must be loose or wasn't tensioned properly in the first place (obvious, right!)

JoeStretch · **Posted:** Wed Nov 11, 2015 5:24 pm

Here is a youtube video that i posted that shows how loose the belt is: i think that it is off 1 notch on the crank. New tensioner and belt ordered. , hope i am not buying new lifters

https://youtu.be/7-tFnj8jG_c

dirtmover · **Posted:** Wed Nov 11, 2015 7:05 pm

Your video is private

JoeStretch · **Posted:** Wed Nov 11, 2015 8:48 pm

I changed it to public, i guess the default setting is private
https://youtu.be/7-tFnj8jG_c

olypopper · **Posted:** Fri Nov 13, 2015 11:17 am

If it's hitting on all four cylinders you don't have broken rockers.

That tensioner IS loose!!!!!!!!!

JoeStretch · **Posted:** Fri Nov 13, 2015 2:40 pm

I guess it comes down to "if you want something done right, do it yourself"

dirtmover · **Posted:** Fri Nov 13, 2015 3:59 pm

JoeStretch wrote:

I guess it comes down to "if you want something done right, do it yourself"

Yeah, tell me about it. Life has taught me that this is generally the case. Even when you do find someone you think is good and can be trusted they usually end up letting you down at some point.

Now, bear in mind that parts do fail and fasteners that are torqued correctly can work their way loose. In your case it's difficult to put the blame back on work was done a year ago although it is a likely scenario.

Given your WP and idlers were replaced recently I'd just check them for play and if good just replace the TB and tensioner and take it from there.

Any slack in the TB is being fed into the WP first. I wonder if you could have been skipping teeth on the WP pulley causing it to rotate slower than it should and provide inadequate circulation? I can't see clearly in the video but is there an excess of belt residue around that area.

JoeStretch · **Posted:** Wed Nov 18, 2015 10:38 pm

So, the new timing belt and tensioner came in the mail last night, took the timing belt tensioner off and noticed that the 10mm bolt that holds it on is partially stripped. Ive ordered a new one from ID Parts but upon removing the bolt the helicoil got screwed up.
I tried threading it back in but it started to unravel. Anyone know the helicoil size of the timing belt tensioner bolt off hand? You'd think VM would just use an insert instead?

geordi · **Posted:** Wed Nov 18, 2015 10:58 pm

The engine came from the factory with that helicoil in it. Blame Chrysler, not your previous mechanic. The helicoil does sometimes back out with the bolt, that is one reason why I don't remove the tensioner until the belt is removed. I pull the idlers instead.

The bolt should be (IIRC) an M8x1.25 size. I don't know what size helicoil would make that the resulting bolt size... Maybe an M10x1.25?

flash7210 · **Posted:** Wed Nov 18, 2015 10:59 pm

1. The timing belt tensioner hole was heli coiled from the factory. Or at least it was on mine.

2. Same thing happened to me during my second timing belt change.
I replaced the heli coil and replaced the bolt with a grade 8 stud and nut.
The heli coil I got from napa.
The stud is a bolt that I got from ho e depot and cut the head off.

Did this back in May. Motor has been running strong ever since.

JoeStretch · **Posted:** Wed Nov 18, 2015 11:10 pm

Still don't know why the previous mechanic never tightened the tensioner properly. A new helicoil should be easy enough to find, I am just happy that I figured out the overheating and poor mileage issue.

Hoping that my rockers or valves are not damaged . Guess I will find out in a week. I also ordered new valve cover gaskets, injector hold down bolts and crush washers. Did i forget anything that ill need to pull the valve covers off?

Mountainman · **Posted:** Thu Nov 19, 2015 12:39 am

JoeStretch wrote:

Still don't know why the previous mechanic never tightened the tensioner properly. A new helicoil should be easy enough to find, I am just happy that I figured out the overheating and poor mileage issue.

Hoping that my rockers or valves are not damaged . Guess I will find out in a week. I also ordered new valve cover gaskets, injector hold down bolts and crush washers. Did i forget anything that ill need to pull the valve covers off?

If you don't have any knocking like sounds, then I would hold off on pulling the top. You can rotate the cams with vise grips and feel for any binding, they should rotate a ways, and then jump, and then again. If everything feels ok, I'd time it, rotate everything together by hand the needed two revolutions for verification, and start it. It usually takes miles and bad luck to drop a valve if a rocker is bad. Pulling the top is a LOT more work than necessary I'd guess.

Then again, if your engine has had more than 50k miles with active EGR on it, and no GDE tune, I would pull the top, add new rockers, and ARP head studs...

JoeStretch · **Posted:** Mon Dec 21, 2015 2:16 pm

UPDATE 12-20-15
Well I took the valve cover off anyway, since I wanted to install the EGR/FCV delete kit and inspect the intake. It took me about 5 hours mostly because the injectors are a pain to get out.
Upon removing the cover/cams, I looked at the intake and it is caked with about 1/2" of soot and sludge.

The rockers are bad . All of the roller bearings are shot some have up to 1/8" play in them with many having slight grooves cut on the rocker arm metal itself. The worst one is cylinder #1, the shaft and keepers are totally gone, just a rocker arm assembly and a roller doing obviously nothing. Definitely the cause of my overheating issue. I plan on dropping the oil pan after straining the oil through a fine mesh to see if I find any bits of metal (the roller bearings) and fishing around with a magnet to see if I can find the #1 rocker keepers and roller shaft.

A few questions for you all.
1. are the bearing in the rollers needle bearings or some sort of bushing?

2. Should I remove the head to try to inspect the valves and see if any are scored or stuck, Is head removal necessary or are there other tests that I can do?

3. Other than dropping the pan how can I be sure that I have all of the metal bits? should I change the oil pump while I am in there or just clean the screen off?
anything else I should do once the oilpan is off?

4. While trying to remove the injectors I thought that there might be vaccum so I had a friend turn the crankhaft, the drill bit from the timing procedure was still pushed through
the flexplate and it snapped in half and fell to the bottom of the bell housing( I hope) I took a look with my borescope and I do not see the other half. Whats' the best way to recover it?
remove the starter and fish around with a flex magnet, or drop the transmission? is there an inspection cover anywhere that I do not see?

5. I had planned on doing the ARP swap but why are they so pricey? it's 18 tempered studs and some nuts?

Any help would be appreciated, I Owe a lot to this forum, it has been invaluable

JoeStretch · **Posted:** Mon Dec 21, 2015 3:17 pm

Quick question, I see a set of rockers/tappets new on Ebay from a UK seller for considerably less than one of the other parts shops that a lot of us use.
$230 for a full set. does anyone have experience with this seller? (newandoldcarparts)? if it was a few bucks difference I wouldnt bother comparing but we are talking $140.00 difference.
any thoughts?

flash7210 · **Posted:** Mon Dec 21, 2015 4:46 pm

Those rockers on ebay look like the right ones. But you would be the first here to buy them from that seller.
Everyone who has bought from IDparts has been satisfied.

The ARP head studs are so expensive because they are the best that money can buy and you will never need to replace them. Unlike the factory head bolts which are one time use only.

If it were me I would remove the head and send it to a local machine shop to have the valves checked and tested for cracks. Then you will need to get a new head gasket. The part I hate about buying a new head gasket is that it automatically comes with a set of new head bolts and are totally useless when installing ARP studs.

olypopper · **Posted:** Tue Dec 22, 2015 1:45 pm

Stretch, I had a similar experience with my CRD and when I opened the engine up, the rockers were in a state of being broken and also having damaged rollers. I did a quick disassembly of one rocker roller and verified a needle bearing count. Then I began tracking down needling bearings that had fallen out of their roller assemblies. I found all but two needle bearings. One ended up being inside the balance shaft assembly and the other was in the oil pan. Don't ask me how in the hell one ended up in the balancer but it was sitting right there when I pulled it. I'm really glad I pulled the engine down and found all the needle bearings.

The bad news is this, if you don't find all the needles, you'll have to pull the engine to inspect for the missing ones. The good news is that the engine is SUPER EASY to work on outside of the Jeep. I had the engine reassembled in just a few hours and that was taking my time. While I was at it, I did a good clean up and was able to drop the engine back in, nearly complete.

You should go ahead and replaced the camshaft seals while you are in there. I soaked the intake on my jeep with a combination of Evinrude engine Tuner and Stoddard solvent. Cleaned up nicely.

Go with the ARP studs and I highly recommend buying your rockers from IDparts. I wouldn't dare buy VM parts on Ebay unless I KNEW what I was buying beforehand. Good luck!

JoeStretch · **Posted:** Tue Dec 22, 2015 9:28 pm

Olypopper, how did you take the rockers apart? Do you press the center shaft out ? I have an arbor press. How many needles per roller?

olypopper · **Posted:** Wed Dec 23, 2015 2:47 am

JoeStretch wrote:

Olypopper, how did you take the rockers apart? Do you press the center shaft out ? I have an arbor press. How many needles per roller?

I used a die grinder on one of the good intake rollers and cut it out of the rocker arm. I carefully counted the needles and started the hunt!

symptoms of the timing belt being off 1 degree off?

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