Doing my first timing belt. All is fine so far (rope trick worked like a charm) except the crank pulley / harmonic balancer has worn a 1" wide groove into the face of the lower timing cover, maybe 3/32" deep.

I thought at first that maybe the outer ring of the harmonic balancer had slipped backwards. This can't be the case though, because the inner ring is flush with the outer ring where it meets the timing cover. Even if the outer ring was way forward, the inner ring would still be gouging into the cover.

The cover seems to be positioned correctly, so I wouldn't think it was sitting too far forward, pushing into the pulley. The only other explanation would be if there is supposed to be washer/spacer to make the pulley sit further forward. There is a large diameter but thin washer that sits between the pulley and the sprocket, but that's all.

What is anyone's opinion on this? I was ready to order a harmonic balancer, but I'm convinced this isn't the issue, given that part of the inner ring sits just as far into the cover as does the outer ring. That leaves either a missing spacer, or the cover is simply sitting too far forward. Does anyone have any dimensional information on the pulley, covers, face of the crank sprocket, etc., so I can see what appears to be out of spec here?


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David Armstrong - '86 240(350k km?), '93 940T(270k km), '89 240(parts source for others) near Toronto