I'm finishing up the motor that I'm piecing together. I bought a Type-S short block form PirateMcFred on here and he already had a manual tensioner installed.

Anyway, I installed the timing and balancer belts today. When I turn the motor over, the timing belt eventually slides to the edge of the tensioner, closest to the balancer pulley. The is a tiny tiny gap between the timing belt and the balancer pulley when it does this. Also, the belt slides slightly off of the cam gears as well. Just a little bit. Is this normal? It seems like the timing belt is wayy too close to the balancer pulley. See pic for reference. Excuse the crappy cell phone quality.

 

Do you have the right balancer tensioner pulley? It's possible he may have reused the H22 balancer tensioner in which case you need to add the right washer to act as a spacer. Refer to this article:

http://www.collectiveracing.ne...rsion/

 

I'm not sure exactly if its the H22 pulley or not. But I have read the article you posted. From what I gathered, adding a washer was just to give the pulleys clearance from one another. The pulleys are in fact clear from each other, its just the belt itself sliding over.

 

In that case, make sure the timing tensioner is all the way against the block and make sure the belt is aligned properly on the timing gear and water pump.

 

What do you mean by aligned properly? Just make sure its not sitting too far one way or the other on the gear? Because I have done that. I will have to double check to make sure the tensioner is tight to the block, but I think it is.

 

is the belt act coming off the cam gears, or is it right on the edge? if its coming off then there is a washer the goes behind the stud that the tensioner pullys are on the sometimes get forgotten

 

this one:

 

As long as the timing belt stays where it is, it will be fine. As long as it doesnt do the following.

1. Belt pops off.
2. Belt rubs onto the balance belt
3. Belt starts shreading itself

I had a H22 that had the belt like that. I did the manuel tensinor swap as well. It always looked weird, but the engine still worked fine, so I didnt give it mmuch thought

 

Looking at the picture I would venture to say you have the timing belt on the balancer shaft pulley. The timing belt goes on the inside pulley against the block, not the second pulley at the adjusting nut.



Its the pulley on the left in the picture.

 

Hah, no. The timing belt IS on the correct pulley.

I'm 99.9% positive that the big washer IS there on the block under the stud. And the belt just slids a tad bit off the cam gears. Barely any at all.

 

I think I might try putting a spacer in between the 2 pulleys and see if the belt keeps sliding toward the balancer pulley.

 

Have you physically rotated the crank by hand? Do it like 10 or 20 times. And then you willl see what the belt is going to do. Extra spacers wouldnt hurt either.

 

That is what I have been doing. The motor is out of the car right now, so that is all I can do. I center the belt back on all the gears and tensioner, then I crank it over by hand quite a few times and the belt moves. It really only takes 4 or 5 rotations for the belt to start walking.

 

It looks ok to me. In fact, in this picture it looks like the old wear marks on the cam gears show the old belt running on the outer edge, and the inner edge is a different color:

 

Hey, the timing belt would run at the edge of the cam gears when I had the block running last. It never walked off after it met that edge. The timing belt was never frayed at the edge or showed evidence of rubbing.

If it goes a little to one side and stays there then that's fine. It it really tries to jump the pulley then the post the bearings ride on might have gotten bent a slight amount and you'll need to straighten it or purchase a new one.

Pirate

 

I had an issue on my H22 with the belt walking out a bit, but it was due to my forgetting to leave the balancer pulley on the crank assembly, it would allow the belt to work its way out, until it contacted the VC. It was quite a bit more extreme than what your pictures show, so i would not be concerned if that is as far as your belt moves out.

 

I think what I am going to do today, is pull the timing belt back off and reinstall everything. I am going to space the timing and balancer pulleys out quite a bit to really see if the timing belt keeps walking towards the balancer pulley. If not, I guess I am ok.

Thanks to everyone for their input.


Modified by c1v1c98 at 12:53 PM 11/14/2008

 

If you're using a balancer belt, you'll have problems with it if you space them too much.

 

I ended up putting a 1/16" [roughly] washer in between the 2 pulleys. It spaced them enough to where the timing belt has some space in between itself and the balancer pulley. I tensioned the belts and cranked it over a good 10 times and the timing belt stayed right where it was at. So it looks like I am all set.

 

Glad to hear it.