Having trouble with timing belt...

[jibroni69]

'87 Nissan Stanza with CA20E

Thanx for all the help with the head gasket. " (IS THIS NORMAL?) Post " All worked out good and smoke went away and burns real clean now. Except one little problem, during teardown I obviously had to remove timing belt, but the belt marks had warn off. So i put the motor in position where cylinder 1 was in top dead center. And marked the belt with some white out. I replaced the belt and ran the car, cleared all antifreeze out of cat but noticed engine not quite running right , tried to set timing but could not get to 15 degrees btdc , so i suspected timing belt not quite right so i bought a new one, while putting new one in there are "3" marks on camshaft pully, 2 dots on raised teeth and one triangle in a groove between 2 teeth. The marks are on the Valley on the belt so i assume one of the 2 dots are the proper mark, but which one?. one has a number "2" stamped below it.

The position of the marks on the camshaft are like this, first there is a triangle mark "stamped" in camshaft valley, then aprox. 6 teeth clockwise there is a dot on a raised tooth with a number 2 stamped below it, then aprox 13 teeth clockwise is the second dot on a raised tooth.

Now the Crankshaft mark is in aprox. the 4 o-clock position when cylinder one in top dead center, and the other mark on the camshaft should be in what position? Aprox. 1 o-clock?????

Plz help, i got to get this thing runnin...... :help

[jibroni69]

Well 2 days and no response, so a lot of research goes a little ways, tell me if im wrong here. I set up the number one cylinder in the top dead center position by manually cranking the crankshaft with timing belt off, i then went through a couple rotations with the camshaft to observe when the intake valve opened and marked the top part of the camshaft as a visual aid. I then rotated the camshaft 1/4 turn as that is equal to 1/2 turn of the crankshaft, This is now in the vicinity of the area where combustion will begin, right? In that area i located the first DOT stamped on a tooth of the camshaft. So can i assume this is the mark i want? The next DOT stamped on the camshaft is almost 60 degrees more rotation which would put me somewhere in the exhaust stroke i assume. And the last mark, a Triangle is stamped almost another 30 degrees more rotation, which puts the triangle at almost a perfect 180 degrees out of sinque with the first dot.

[chezina]

Hope this gets not to confusing, but i will try.There are marks on the rear timing belt cover (the black plate behind the cams), these marks have to align with the dots on the raised teeth, now your cams are set at TDC.Now check if number 1 piston is at TDC, to do this you have to checkout for a mark on the crankshaft pulley gear (on a tooth again) and align this with a mark on the front housing (after this the mark on the crankshaft pulley gear should be located ca. 4o'clock).When putting the belt on there should be 3 marks on the belt and now each should align right with the ones on the camgears and crankshaft pulley gear.

[jibroni69]

Well i didnt seem to get any real response so i went ahead and did some research and deductive reasoning. There are only 2 marks on timing belt so I found Top Dead Center, marked it on side of crankshaft housing and rotated out of top dead center. I then cranked the camshaft a couple times to measure which quarter turn was equal to what stroke of the engine , once i was confident i had the start of the ignition stroke, i rotated the camshaft half as much as i did the crankshaft ( 2 turns vs 1 turn of camshaft), I then pulled the distributer and checked what points it was at and found the stator in the number 1 position on both the exhaust and intake side, so i was now fairly confident i was on the right track. On the camshaft sprocket I told you earlier there where 3 marks, 2 Dots on raised teeth and one triangle in a valley. My Dot without a number 2 below it was at top of Camshaft so this is the mark i was looking to line up to the timing belt as well as the crankshaft mark which was obviouse seeing as there was only one mark, in the 4 o'clock position. I went ahead and replaced the distributor , timing belt , threw everything back together , crossed my fingers and turned it over, VOILA, Perfect, timing was out by about 5 degrees, not bad for an educated guess. Set up the timing and took it out onto the highway for a run, she ran great, The old timing belt must have slipped a cog or 3 because it was misfiring at highrevs and was impossible to set the timing up. What a learning experience.

[chivas]

when are you suppose to change the timing chain? i have an 87 stanza as well and i would hate to be stranded somewhere when that thing pops. anywhere i can got a timing chain kit? i know they sell a timing belt change kit for the VG30DETT motors. thanks!

PS: how long did it take you and how long do you think it would take you to do it again? want to gauge between first time and repeated times.

[f s t caz]

when it breaks. most often, a timing chain guide will break and cause the chain to be loose in one area, and make noise. so you just replace the timing chain guide most often.

[boost_boy]

87 Stanzas don't have a timing chain, but it does have a belt. Quote »jibroni69[/quote] I guess you could use the marks on the timing belt, but they too are a pain to reference. Like chezina says, use the timing marks on the camshaft sprocket and line them up with the mark on the black cover behind the camshaft sprockets. The exhaust cam is a bee with an itch to keep in place, so you may have to have someone hold it in place for you.

Dee