Ok I am doing a timming belt and waterpump relace on my car. Got Valve cover off and set the no1 piston to top dead center. I loosend the tensioner bolt on the belt, removed the timing belt from the cam gears. Keep in mind that I didn't remove the lower cover yet so the timming belt was still hooked up to the water pump and tensioner pulley. I then got to remove all the bolts on the cover, then I relized you have to remove the crank pulley to fully remove the lower cover( I know Im a dumb *** and didn't do some research first on how to replace waterpump.) So I was gonna drive to the local tranny shop to have them impact the bolt out for me, so I put the timming belt back on, I check the cam markings to make sure I didin't move. Got everything back on and now the car wont start. It feels as if the timming is off. How can this be if I had it at TDC.

 

it is off timing

 

Use a timing light....its real easy to get things off time,i had a hell of a time with the distributor in my car, Good luck

 

An easy way to check if the #1 piston is up is to take the spark plug out and with a retractable magnet stick or a rod thin enough and long enough to fit into the sparkplug hole turn the crank and see the stick rise until it cant rise no more and check the timing mark at the same time (TDC), then check your cam gears for timing! easy as 1,3,2 I mean 1,2,3!!