Lower timing belt cover rubbing serpentine belt.

I just finished a timing belt change recently where I noticed when putting the serpentine belt back on that the lower T.B. cover sticks out a little past the inner lip of the harmonic balancer. The serpentine belt will go on fine, but the cover touches the inner side of the belt. The cover seems to be flexible enough that I can push it back and everything will clear fine.

I thought maybe this problem would have been caused by the 3rd lower cover bolt missing. That one that's a T-head bolt that supposedly always falls out was never there since I purchased the car last year. I've never noticed this issue before, never got any strange sounds, and the old serpentine belt appears to be fine (i.e. no signs of rubbing).

I ordered in that bolt and put it where it belongs, but the lower part is still rubbing the harmonic balancer. It almost feels like the harmonic balancer is too close to the block for some reason. Either that, or the lower T.B. cover is sticking out too far or is bent. I have no reason to believe the lower cover got bent, but I'm not ruling it out.

Any ideas?

That's neat!

Update: I pulled the pulleys back off and the lower cover out to inspect everything. The only thing I saw slightly "unusual" might be that the pegs that guide the metal cover on are not flush with the cover like in this picture. Just for clarification, this is not my picture.





The peg you see in the bottom right on this picture is flush with the end, but that is not the case with mine.

Checking everything out around it, I saw nothing out of order. Everything looks to be in correctly and all the gaskets that I just replaced look good.

At this point, I had a look at the lower cover to see if it was misshapen. I noticed the places on the metal ridge corresponding to where the serpentine belt would pass over have had the paint rubbed off. This obviously means that my old belt was rubbing there.

For the time being, I decided to hammer down those two points on the ridge so the new belt would not touch. That seems to have done the job nicely as it all fits together with decent clearance. Only one issue now remaining...

I noticed this part of the plastic guide that the timing belt goes through was broken. Again, this is not my picture but I added the arrow.




The smooth part of the plastic that would guide the timing belt was broken and a little jagged right there. I cut out the loose, broken flaps and sanded down the whole thing so it wouldn't cut into the timing belt.

I would like to replace this lower cover, but I couldn't find them on any of our vendors' websites. Does anybody have any recommendations where to find one?

Also, if anybody's still paying attention, what may have been the cause for the cover to stick out past the lip of the harmonic balancer causing the belt to rub?

As always, thanks for reading!