I recently (about 2 months now...) got my car back from having a rebuilt engine dropped in and it appears that my timing belt is riding over the edge of the cam gear. As such, the edge of the timing belt is rubbing on something (my guess is the side cover) and started to crack.

The guy at the shop seems to think the cam gears are the wrong application, or something is misaligned on the crankshaft (timing belt pulley).. ? I eliminated the balance shafts and there was a spacer that was provided to take the place of the balance shaft belt pulley. My theory is that this spacer is too wide and it is causing the path of the belt to be a couple degrees off....just enough to pull the belt off the cam gear less than 1/8"". Since I am pretty sure that there is nothing that can be done to space the cam gears over correctly to line up the belt, the only other thing it could be is the spacer on the crankshaft ... right?!

I will hopefully be able to post some pics this afternoon when I get the old belt back. Only thing I can come up with is that the spacer is the wrong size causing the belt to shift ever so slightly.....since everything is torqued down then there is no way that the timing belt pulley on the crank is in the wrong place.

HELP PLEASE!! I am not ready to change my timing belt every other month!!!


Modified by NoVALude at 9:31 AM 7/14/2006

 

How far over the edge of the gears is the belt?

 

Hey Hawkze...I will have to measure it once I get the old belt back, but I would say no more than 1/8 of an inch.....seriously like no more than a few millimeters....hope to get a pic for you to see after lunch.

I thought that maybe the spacer was loose, but since everything on the crank snout is torqued down, there should be no way that the spacer is loose. I just think that the spacer is too wide and pushing the line of the belt off a bit.

It is weird...when you look at the top of the cam gears, you can see the belt hanging over the edge, but when you follow the belt around the cam gears, as it goes down past the side cover, it appears to be lining up properly. The belt appears to be flush with the side of the cam gear. I thought the belt was supposed to ride more toward the middle of the gear and not on the edge.

 

Mine is over about 1/8" also, but it stops there and I haven't had any problems...

Aftermarket cam gears have been known to be a bit wider than stock and almost everyone ends up cutting side of the valve cover off for clearance/access for the gears.

I'd say just cut your valve cover...

 

Valve cover is already cut...and not moon cuts either....the side piece that is connected to the valve cover is missing, so my belt is completely exposed on the top....if that cover pirce were on like it should be, I never would have seen that the blet was rubbing and cracking.....who knows whe, but knowing my luck I would be doing 65 on the freeway and the belt would have snapped.

I think it might be ok if the belt would not crack after it rubs wherever it is rubbing. I have read many posts here that members say their belt hangs over...but I hae not seen that members have issues like this with their belt.


I got the car back a bit ago and they were not able to get to my car...so no pics of the belt off the car. I am going to go out later and see if the belt stopped where the cracks are and snap a few pics.


Just bugs the **** outta me!!!!

 

Take your lower belt covers off and see if it is rubbing on those....

 

some people say to do the auto to manual tensioner swap
apparently sometimes it helps

i have the same problem where my timing belt keeps working it's way away from the engine and rubs on the valve cover

i told my problem to the owner of a respectable honda shop (been building honda race engines for 14 years) and he said something along the lines of changing the crank shims or something like that
i can't remember exactly what he said cause i'm an idiot.... sorry i'm not a mechanic

but someone else might know what it is i'm talking about......???

 

thanks for the reply but I have already done the auto to manual tensioner swap.

I just think that the belt is tilted just enough instead of being straight perpendicular to the ground. A guy I know is a blue printer and has a good buddy who works on nothing but Honda's and Acura's.....hopefully he can shed some light on the subject....

 

Ok, I got the timing belt done yesterday and I have the old belt in the car. I will post pics at lunch to show you what the hell was happening.

 

Ok, here are some pics:









It looks like the belt was wearing unevenly on one end. The pics show the chewed up end, but on the opposite end of the belt, the tread looks fine....

 

I'm wanting to say I remember hearing this problem on here before. Maybe a missing washer or something small on the back of the tensioner. Shoot, it's right there in my memory. I think Precision answered a problem similar to this a year or so ago.

 

The "in - out" part of timing belt run is determined by the crankshaft sprocket. There should be belt guides (shaped washers) on each side of the sprocket.

 

I have a similar problem. I installed my new cam gears, and now the belt is ever so slightly over the edge. I haven't cut the valve cover yet, so it rubs. The new gears are, in fact, wider than the stock ones like Hawkze was saying. Should I just cut the VC? Or does this look like it could be bad (probably not, just double checking)?

 

On the honda-parts site, there does not seem to be any washers that go on either side of the crank sprocket.....


http://tinyurl.com/hy4zt