I blew my head gasket again. I figured I got enough out of it without having it machined or using a new head. I was driving today and it died and wouldn't start back up. Actually it would start back up but I had to ride the gas. So I hoped that the belt had only skipped a tooth since I didn't completely torque the tensioner bolt down as it was stripping. So anyway I lined up the mark for the flywheel and it looked like it was a tooth off(it was above the timing marker on the block) the cam gear so I slid off the belt from the cam gear and moved the cam gear forward one tooth then started the car. The car ran worse so I just had it towed back to my house and am gonna get a new head.

My question is when I pull the head to put the new one on and loosen the belt to get it off, can I turn the crank bolt while the belt isn't attached to the new cam gear to line up dead center by looking at the 1 and 4 pistons straight up position before I put the belt on tdc on the new head's cam gear or will the belt move off its marks on one or all of the other timing components since it won't be tight?

 

Ugh. The small tensioner bolt does not need to be torqued down too much. Just enough to hold the position, the large stud that the two bearings sit on will hold the rollers in position. Hand tight is fine. That small bolt screws directly into the aluminum block.
No. As the new head and headgasket will either require less/more tension. It would be best to just remove the lower covers and verify everything is lined up, reset the tension and be done with it.
You could try to maintain the timing marks by keep constant tension on the belt, bit IMO you will be creating more work.
phootbag in the past has mentioned placing white out on the gears and a dot on the engine to line up the sprockets with ease. That will work if your marks are good and the initial alignment was correct.

 

Ok, I'm just gonna redo the timing belts while I'm at it. I don't really want to risk screwing up the new head and it may or may not have been off a tooth anyhow. I won't know until I do it right.