MaverickH1
Veteran Member
I figured a video would be easiest to explain what's going on:
FYI.I probably checked the belt at 168k and every oil change before that and it looked great.
What should I do to check that the engine is in good health? If I never heard any loud clanking, slapping, or any of that, is it safe to assume that a piston hasn't made contact with anything? Or do I need to remove the valve cover or head too and make sure?FYI.
The belt is usually not what fails, but rather one of the many spinning parts along it’s path. Checking the belt won’t tell you if a roller’s bearing is going bad and about to take the belt out when it fails.
Definitely check the timing, and I also would recommend changing the timing belt, water pump, idler rollers and tensioner before starting it.
My search on how to turn over the engine by hand revealed I have to jack the car up, remove the wheel and wheelwell cover, remove the harmonic balancer, THEN I'd be able to rotate the engine. I haven't had time to do that, yet.Doesn't make sense to me why you haven't verified the timing belt integrity and timing by now. If nothing else, at least rule that out, and stop trying to start it if that is in fact what happened.
If the car is in decent shape, sell it as is to someone who will. They aren't making any more of these. People like me resurrect them all the time. I've untooefed countless cars just like that, many still on the road today.
That’s not necessary, just need a 19mm 12 point socket. The crank bolt is accessible without removing wheel and harmonic balancer.My search on how to turn over the engine by hand revealed I have to jack the car up, remove the wheel and wheelwell cover, remove the harmonic balancer, THEN I'd be able to rotate the engine. I haven't had time to do that, yet.
In your video you showed that the TB is damaged. If it breaks or slips it can cause *major* damage (often piston - valve contact, which if you're lucky is 'just' a valve replacement job, but still more hassle than changing a timing belt that needs changing anyway).I don't want invest $900 in a timing belt, tools, and VagCom only to find out the engine is screwed or the injection pump is screwed and the car should be scrapped.
It still doesn't make sense to me why the fuel would happily spray out of the injectors and then completely shut off due to timing. Unless the belt is spinning the injection pump intermittently...
My search on how to turn over the engine by hand revealed I have to jack the car up, remove the wheel and wheelwell cover, remove the harmonic balancer, THEN I'd be able to rotate the engine. I haven't had time to do that, yet.
I'm likely going to winch the car onto my trailer so I can bring it to my waterjet shop so I can have it where all of my tools actually are. I watched videos until 2 AM last night to try to figure out how to do a visual timing check, and was unable to find a clear answer.
I've only done 2 timing belt changes in 20 years. I don't do this for a full time job.
I'm trying to do anything else I can to verify that the timing isn't screwed up.
Yeah I helped two of my buddies do TB’s this summer, both had cars with unknown belt history and both belts looked fine, but both had idler pulleys that sounded like rock crushers and on one of them the tensioner was audibly on borrowed time as well.This suggests that J_Dude is quite correct - the tensioner etc. normally wear out first, or the stress on the belt is different
Very well put.Visually inspecting the timing belt is like inspecting a light bulb, it works till it doesn’t.
Post 15 - the OP said he checked codes. No immobilizer code.Is there any chance your problem is just a dead key?
I figured it would be something like that. Rotated just now. All hope and pray marks don't align. The IP hole looks off by a tooth:Fuel pump (and cam) rotates at half crankshaft speed. So your flywheel mark will line up at TDC (compression stroke) AND at the top of the exhaust stroke.
Turn crank one more full rotation.