So I don't know how it happened but it did. The timing belt on my car decided it was hungry and tried to eat itself. So I spent about 85% of my weekend replacing it. Oh how I long for a small block 350.
So, whether you know or not I drive a 95 Neon. It has what they term in the business as an "interference" engine. Meaning that if you don't set the timing right the first time you will be paying a mint for a new head. Or at the very least, new valves and possibly pistons.
At about 4pm Sunday is when I finally got everything back together. I started at 10am on Saturday. Took me about an hour to remove the power steering pump, loosen the alternator and get the motor mount out. Simple stuff. Just turning bolts here and there.
Then I got to the crankshaft pully. This thing is a 6000 pound pressfit device. Only one proper way to remove it. Unfortunately I don't have any idea what that way is. So I rent this tool designed to facilitate removing the pully. It comes with a couple of rods that sit down in the bottom of bolt hole. Something to push off of while the jaws of the puller pull on the pully. Say that 3 times fast. But I digressed. The rods that came with kit have a flaw. The short one is too short and the long one isn't quite long enough. I got the thing about half way to 2/3 the way off and I have run out of room. I've cranked down to the point that I'm now tightening this goofy thing back down.
I ended up sacraficing a nut driver to the cause. At this point some 45 minutes after starting the pully removal process I was able to remove it. Now I can take of the semi eaten timing belt. It's bad. I thought it was bad when I looked at it Friday afternoon when I got home after smelling burning rubber on the 2nd street exit. I'm actually surprised I made it home on the thing. There is a section of it about 4 inches long where it is half the width of the rest of the belt. Clean too. Like someone took a pair of scissors and cut it out.
After shaking my head I sit down, have a drink and watch a little Harry Potter. ABC Family was having an "event". I have a little lunch and watch a little more HP and decide to get back to the car. My goal was to have it finished byt sunset. So I still have a few hours.
Bear in mind I have done this before. And it took 4 hours start to finish. I was lucky that day. So I set about making sure all my timing is setup. You have to line up the notches on the camshafts to an imaginary centerline and set the crankshaft a half a tooth before top dead center. So I do that, no problem. Now I put the belt on.
Starting at crankshaft the instructions say to work in a counter clockwise direction. Seems pretty straight forward right? No. Getting past the water pump and then over the idler is easy. Just have to make sure there is no slack. No problem. Start to wrap it over the intake side camshaft sprocket, still so far so good. Over to the exhaust side and we run into an issue. The teeth on the belt don't mesh with the teeth on the sprocket. I recheck the marks on the cams to the "imaginary" line. They are both off. So I put some slack in the belt and readjust. Looks good. Run the belt over, get it around the tensioner idler. Looking good so far. Grab the breaker bar to put tension on the tensioner and look down at the crankshaft sprocket. One tooth after top dead center. I have to start over. I can't remember exactly how many times I tried before 6pm. It seemed like a lot though. About 6:30 I put the tire back on and rolled it out of the garage. As Scarlett O'Hara says; I'll think about it tomorrow.
Sunday morning I wake up and have absolutley no motivation to finsh on the car. I spend about 2 hours playing video games. Finally about noon I go out to get started. 3 more times trying to get everything right. I finally do. At this point I am exhausted. Physically and emotionally drained. I take 2 hours putting the car back together. I did start it before reassembly just to make sure it did run right. I wasn't that far gone yet. I took it for a test drive and all was well.
On my way to work this morning the oil light came on.
