Hello everyone,

Thanks in advance, I have been reading this forum for years, but never posted before due to all my issues having already been addressed. I have been researching possible solutions, but could not find all the answers I needed. so I felt it warranted a post to see what the professionals thought.

Last week I was driving on the interstate, I heard a faint clinking noise, followed by my power steering going out. I was driving on a bridge going over the bay so I decided to keep driving till I could exit. This took around 4 miles and at about a speed of 30 mph my vehicle died. (I assumed alternator belt because upon further inspection the belt was no longer attached.)

I discovered my crank pully was just dangling on the belt, but the bolt and key were still attached thank goodness. I towed the vehicle home, and inspected the crank pulley, pulley bolt and the woodruff key, they were all in great condition by some stroke of grace. I went to reinstall the parts, but the woodruff key would not slide all the way back in. I found out that the timing belt drive pulley had misaligned due to the woodruff key sliding out when the crank pulley bolt came out.

I inquired to some friends that knew a fair amount about vehicles. They said as long as the timing belt had not been touched and was still properly tension then to just realign the key indention with the crank shaft, pulley and timing balancer (rotating the crankshaft counter clockwise). I did this, still not fully understanding how it could remain properly timed by doing this.

It is possible that the crankshaft made more than 1 revoltion out of sync with the camshaft due to timing belt drive pulley no longer spinning with the crankshaft and simply realigning the key indention would not necessarily put it back in proper sequence.

Well I get everything back on, and start the engine (after charging the battery) and it definitely has a peculiar idle. The idle RPMs are around 1500, but the engines varys by 50 rpms plus or minus at 1500. Then after about 30 seconds it will go down to about 500 RPMs and act like it wants to die until I give it some gas. I can give it gas and get the RPMs to 2500 and it seems to sound better.

My next step is to do a compression test (possible bent valve), but I'm still not convinced that the timing is right. I also am ignorant in this regard, because I don't fully understand what is happening. So this is why I am bringing this here.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to be as clear as I could regarding what happened.

Thanks

 

You basically need to check the mechanical timing and be sure its correct. Then compression test as you already plan on doing. That will tell any damage done.

 

lucky for you the timing belt runs on a separate pulley behind the plastic cover that was behind your crank pulley. But like Holmes said, check your mech timing. If it's still on Q then nothing left synchronization. Its possible the pulley that runs the timing belt from the crank moved outward causing the crank pos sensor and fluctuation sensor to not get a proper reading which would more than likely cause the shut down. Hope you got luck tho