I recently bought a new to me Del Sol. It has the 1.5l motor in it and a 5 speed. I was checking the timing on it. With a jumper installed in the connector, the distributor is adjusted toward the front of the car as far as it will go and the timing will still not get to where it needs to be.

When I drive up hill with a load on the engine, it sounds like the valves are rattling. This was the reason for me to check the timing. Would the timing being this retarded cause the valve rattling like this?

The car is coming up on 180K miles. I know the timing belt has been changed before at least once, there is a sticker on the upper belt guard.


Any thoughts on this? The car seems to run well. It gets 41 MPG with the AC running.

Thanks for any help.

 

You should probably verify that mechanical timing is correct. For the valves you can check to see if the lash is within spec.

 

I believe you are correct on the mechanical timing. Could this timing being out this much cause the valve rattle?

 

Check the timing is simple.... Turn the engine over until you read up on the cam gear(must be up in the middle of valve cover, not down)... and then look down at the crank pulley and timing cover and see which one of the 3 notches the cover points at..(Should point to the first notch, the other 2 are made for the timing light gun thing) Then if you really want to get into checking, remove the dizzy cap and see which cylinder it points to..

 

More accurate way is to just spin the crank pulley bolt until every thing lines up. and you're not looking for the 3 marks you're looking for the one mark that is furthest away from the other 3.

 

Ok so there is 4 marks not 3 may bad , the one by it self . That's what I was getting at...

 

I just got around to checking static timing. I lined the pointer up with the notch in the cover. With the cam pulley lined toward top, the single line is lined up with pointer.

That appears to be good. I have been thinking the whole time it must be at least one tooth off.

The belt does seem to have some slack in it. If I roll the engine in one direction then go the opposite the belt slackens just a bit.

All of the above was done with the distributor turned as far toward the front of the car as possible, where I found it. I am going to turn the distributor back toward the center and recheck static timing.

Any more ideas appreciated.

 

You aren't supposed to spin the motor the wrong direction. It isn't made to do that. Don't do it.

 

Several valves needed adjustment. There were many over the recommended lash. After lashing the valves, I checked the tension on the belt. It seemed there was A LOT of slack in the belt. I loosened the tensioner and rotated the engine in the normal direction of rotation this took a lot of slack out of the belt. I re-tightened the tensioner. Tomorrow I will recheck the timing and see if it is closer to where it needs to be.