My car has a whine to it (sounds kinda like a supercharger) now that I changed my timing belt. I'm thinking it's too tight. It's my first PE belt and I'm not sure if it's the nature of the belt (due to different materials etc.), or it's just plain too tight.

Question is, the belt only has 120 miles on it, will it stretch/grow a little, or should I loosen it up a bit?
Motor was out of the car and I used a screw driver to pry the tension pulley to get it tight...and no, I didn't ream on it, just gave it some extra tension.

Any insight is appreciated.

 

sounds too tight to me. I would use the manual's advice on tighenting the belt and try it again, shouldnt take more than a few minutes.

 

Belt too tight- let the spring tension the pulley DON'T help it!

 

the spring isnt strong enough to hold those belts properly. my belt doesnt flop at all when running. smooth, if u let that spring do all the work, the belt would slip. but i run JUN stuff which i hear very little problems about timing belts.

 

make it snug while the engine is hot.
DO NOT follow factory procedure or let the spring try to take up the slack by itself

 

Your belt may be too tight, but it also may be making noise where as the old worn out belt didn't make a sound.

As far as tensioning techniques are concerned, you don't want to help the spring. A good friend of mine is a ASE Certified Tech and gave me instructions as to the proper way to tension a belt.

You want to slide on the new belt, using a wrench, crank the engine over around 2 full turns (in the direction of normal operation). Once you round the second turn, wait until you start to feel tension and hold the wrench. Tighten the tension bolt down at this point.

How does this work? When you feel tension (assuming no spark plugs) it is the valve springs fighting the cams movement. So the front side of the belt has all of the slack pulled and will never get any tighter than that. What happens on the back side (water pump and tension) is irrelevant. The spring takes the slack out of that side.

Another thing to consider, is that when the engine warms up, it gets bigger. If the belt is too tight, it will only get tighter. The idea of doing it while the engine is warm is good, but I don't like working on hot engines....just a personal preference.

With that in mind, it's almost better to be a tad on the loose side.

-Alex


[Modified by civicgsr, 12:25 AM 7/16/2002]

 

Thanks for the help everyone. I will loosen it a tad, but keep it tighter than with just the spring.
Helms plus a little more

 

are you sure it is not an accessory belt that is too tight?

 

Yep, only alternator and it's fine...thanks for the help though.

 

You guys can help the spring if you want or think you need to, but when your cam journals are worn don't say I didn't warn ya! The tighter you make the belt, the more it stretches and the more likely it is to break. I have seen several overtightend belts break prematurely and some have even snapped the cam snout off. When I tension timing belts, I turn the crank to take up the slack and while holding this tension I tighten the adjuster bolt. Never had any problems or noise.

 

thats how i do it. im just saying that my belt doesnt flop around when its running. no noises whatsoever either.