Well I managed to get the timing belt back over my cam gears, but the overall tension of the belt is fairly loose. I followed the Helm's instructions on how to tighten it, and the belt gets tighter, but until it gets taut, the crankshaft rotates while the camshafts do not. The problem with this is that now pistons 1 and 4 aren't quite at top dead center, but the camshafts still are (until the belt is tight enough to rotate them). So my problem is that i can either have a loose timing belt that's positoned at TDC, or a properly tensioned timing belt, that's not quite at TDC. Obviously it wouldn't be smart to start the car in either situation, so does anyone have any ideas? Is there something that I'm overlooking?

 

got the right belt? turning the engine the right way?

 

Try to arrange it, with the belt loose, so that the engine is a little before TDC, then follow the tightening sequence so that it's at center when the belt tightens.
I'm trying to remember mine, I think I had a similar issue.
Shoot, well, bad memory, but good luck.

 

That's one idea, but it also has to be very precise, and using that method could take a long time if I ever got it right. Thanks for the idea though.

 

Try pulling it tight around the exhaust cam and then tight over the intake cam and manually tension it by pulling on the tensioner with a paperclip or something. I could never get it to work right woth that "turn it 3 teeth" BS.

 

Alright, isn't it hard to reach the tensioner with the bottom case still on though? I didn't want to hassle with trying to get the crank pulley off, so that case is still on. Anyways, I think I'll probably just have a mechanic do it, save some hassle. Thanks.

 

what we did was set it at TDC with Intake cam first then exhaust, then had someone hold their thumb on the belt in the middle of the gears or just get a heavy enough wrench and set it down ontop of it so the belt doesnt move around. After we tightened everything we were still dead on

 

Wow, that's actually a pretty good idea that seems like it'll work. Thanks for the help, I'll have to try it later.