legacycentral bbs

Hey guys hope you are all having a better day than me. Im doing the timing belt, pulleys and water pump on my 99 obw. so far its been kicking my behind.

Im stuck on a bit of a mind boggler.. i have my crank shaft sprocket lined up with the crank shaft key facing the ground the arrow on the sprocket facing the drivers side and the notch on the oil pump lined up with the notch on the block. here is the tricky part.. all of my cams are about 4 teeth off!! the single mark on the intake cam that should be at 12 oclock is between 1 and 2 oclock. and the double hash marks obviously not close either...

the car ran fine as far as i noticed.. the car was "shakey" at an idle but i thought that was due to a too low rpm at idle..

do i just try to put it back the way it is with the new belt or put the cams on the marks like everything says it should be from the get go..

youtube!!!!!

i do youtube. lol no one else has my crappy luck lol

Is this how it was prior to you touching it, or did it wind up that way after install? If so, did you verify tooth count between the timing marks?

This was how it was prior to me touching it. Everyone is baffled by it. So I just turned the motor till the cams are lined up like they should be and marked the crank sprocket. I then triple checked the cam marks and tooth count.. I just have to put the fans back on and start her up...

My theory is.. If it ran before it should run again. Lol

What? From what you said it sounds like you lined up the cams, but then turned the crank sprocket to the incorrect mark it used to be on? If you took the belt off you want all of the marks on the cams and crank lined up. It will run with the timing thrown off a stupid amount, but you'll be down on power or it will not run nearly as smooth.

Even 4 teeth on every cam? Most people I talked too said that would be bending valves and wouldn't even start.

But yes I just set it back to the way it was before I touched it.

This is the second belt it's had but supposedly a respectable "Subaru" expert shop did the last one. And I got her from the original owner.

I'm almost thinking just take it to a stealership to replace the cam seals or something and have them deal with the belt.. Lol I get a 1 year warrenty if they break my crap then lol

You won't bend valves as long as each cam is off the same amount.

so the valves hit each other not piston to valve contact? well damn

The pistons have reliefs cut in so the valves won't hit them. But his varies by year too, so you might wanna double check for your year/engine.

ill have to do that.. thanks.. that would explain why it had so much vibration at an idle..

sooo anyone in the future that has this problem.. set everything to the marks that are there.. crank set to the factory crank mark.. and cams to the cam marks.. my crank was set 4 teeth counter clock wise which means when it tried to fired up on the compression stroke.. lol the piston wasnt at tdc it was still on its way up and spun backwards.. so yeah

as for me.. after im done kicking myself in the nuts im going to dig in and reset the timing.. correctly. and pray nothing is ruined besides my ego. thanks for the help anyways guys.