|
Cam and Crank timing marks not lining up! What should I do?
I'm in the middle of a timing belt change on my V6 and am a little stumped that I can't get my timing marks to align. The FSM says if the cam markings don't align when the crank marking is aligned to turn that cam a complete 360 degrees (thats because the crank has 24 teeth and the cam has 48). Unfortunatly the cam markings are either at 10 o'clock or 4 o'clock and will not line up with the timing belt cover markings. The car was running perfectly fine before and this is routine maintenance so I don't believe the timing was off before, but the car has 189,000 on it and this is the second T-belt, the first done by a mechanic.
1. Is it possible that the previous mechanic reinstalled the cam pulleys/crank timing pulley incorrectly?
2. The crank and cam seals are good, and I'm not changing the water pump so can't I just mark the old belt, count teeth and be very careful to install everything as it is now, even tough the marks don't align? My worry is that when I remove the old belt the cams will turn on their own under the pressure of the valve springs because they are not at TDC.
|