After 2 days of blood, sweat & tears I got my new waterpump installed. BUT, now my car doesnt start. Let me tell you why.

I didnt have a impact, so I held the cam pully while I had someone else working on the bolt in the crank pully. Well I think the timing belt really needed to be changed out cause while trying to get the bolt out I felt what seemed like a tourqe wrench clicking, it ended up being the teeth on the timing belt, about nine of em. Ok so when this happened the crank pully moved w/out the cam pully moving. I tried moving it back to where it was & put everthing back together after everything was installed & now I'm stuck using public trans till I can figure out how to get everything back the way it was.

Just a note to anyone thinking about doing there waterpump themselves to save $$, make sure you dont do what I did.

 

Hey kids.. this is why you DON'T TO **** TO YOUR ENGINE WITHOUT A SERVICE MANUAL AND SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING!

Sorry.. just had to say it...

 

Is somebody grumpy

 

Don't think hes grumpy, but that is a pretty major undertaking to do without the proper tools or directions.

 

Yeh, the service manual was as much help as my 10 month old.

 

The FSM is fine except it tends to spread some of the
information around a bit. I ran into this when I was
doing my 120K Service (t-belt, acc belts, water pump,
thermostat), some of the information I needed was else-
where in the manual...but that was because one section
might deal with replacing the timing belt, while another
deals with replacing the water pump, while another deals
with replacing acc belts. I wish it had one section that
walked you through the entire 120K service, but that's
asking a lot...you just have to read over what has to
be done in each procedure and tie them all together.

You should be able to line everything up using a new timing
belt and be good to go. You'll need to make sure the crank
is at TDC (I think you should be able to pop the top on the
distributor and see the rotor pointed at the #1 plug wire
BUT verify that this only occurs when #1 is at TDC and not
when the crank is also at 180 as well) by lining up the mark
on the crank pulley and the mark on the lip below the crank
gear. The upper cams (from what someone mentioned in a
different post) should be set with their timing marks lining
up with the ones on the back cover as they cannot be set 180
off. If you just broke nine teeth, your crank should not
have moved much and you should be able to move it forward
or backward to get your belt to align (I'm sure you've
noticed the white timing marks on the timing belt that
should correspond to the ones on the crank and cams if
everything is set up correctly).

You don't want to go moving the crank seperately from the
cams (which I am sure you are quite aware of), is that what
you did?

 

Yeh, well the crank moved when the teeth broke. I got it all put back together & made sure it was at TDC & the rotor was 180 degrees off #1. Gota take it all back apart for the 3rd time. My only problem is getting the cams back on time, theres not much play.

 

Rotor was 180 degrees off #1? I thought it was supposed to
be 0 degrees off #1 if it was at TDC... I'm not disputing
that what you did was right or wrong, just wondered where
you saw that it should be 180 off #1 instead of 0 off #1.
Maybe it was the way I set mine up, but I could've sworn I
set all my timing marks with the rotor at 0 degrees not 180
degrees from #1.

I know what you are going through, I had to tear mine down
at least three times when I did my t-belt/thermostat/water
pump replacement. When I had to set up the upper cam gears
(rotate them to their marks), I wrapped the old timing belt
around the gear with the teeth meshed into the cam teeth
and then pulled on the belt to rotate the cam gear to the
correct position. The thing that kept screwing me up is
that the timing marks were so hard to see, I kept losing
them (especially the ones on the back cover). I got out
a bottle of "White-Out" and dabbed some on each of the
timing marks and that helped out quite a bit. Once you get
the marks on the gears, covers, and timing belt all lined
up, then you have the tensioner to deal with and that
procedure for setting it outlined in the FSM is a real
treat.

I agree, the cams are a b**** to turn...

 

I know what you are going through, I had to tear mine down
at least three times when I did my t-belt/thermostat/water
pump replacement. When I had to set up the upper cam gears
(rotate them to their marks), I wrapped the old timing belt
around the gear with the teeth meshed into the cam teeth
and then pulled on the belt to rotate the cam gear to the
correct position. The thing that kept screwing me up is
that the timing marks were so hard to see, I kept losing
them (especially the ones on the back cover). I got out
a bottle of "White-Out" and dabbed some on each of the
timing marks and that helped out quite a bit. Once you get
the marks on the gears, covers, and timing belt all lined
up, then you have the tensioner to deal with and that
procedure for setting it outlined in the FSM is a real
treat. I didn't note how my old tensioner was set before I
pulled it off, so I was sweating how I put the new one on
(I heard horror stories about folks with the VG30 motor in
the Nissan Quest/Mercury Villagers overtightening their
tensioners and breaking their crank pulleys off).

I agree, the cams are a b**** to turn...

 

I have the Chilton's, Haynes, and the FSM. Before attempting to do anything, I compare all three manual instructions as well as illustrations.

However, I don't understand why Matt is glorifying the FSM.
Though, it is good stufff, the illustrations suck and sometimes the info is scattered and unclear.

One look at the instructions for the timing belt, and I new that this was something out of my league. So I left it up the pros.

But it is great some of you guys attempt it and thus try to at least get a feel of the stuff involved in doing a belt or pump change.