Hi,

I'm doing my first timing belt and am worried I may have made some errors.

The summary is:

I don't know if I've put the timing belt on with things in the wrong place. Then I rotated the engine by hand.

Is there a way for me to check if the belt is on with correct timing?
Should I be worried that I've caused valve damage with my errors?
If the belt is not on correctly, how can I align the engine when the pulleys may have moved?


Here's the details:

I have an aftermarket harmonic balancer, so the counterhold tool does not fit exactly at TDC (or what I think is TDC). So the crank was slightly of when I removed the belt.

The cam may have moved slightly but I lined up the mark on the pulley with the cover. I think the cam was in the correct position.

The intermediate shaft spun when I was removing the nut. When I put the timing belt on, I simply lined up the mark on the pulley with the cover. Not sure if it rotated a full turn or more before I lined it up.

I put the belt on the first time, but wasn't sure if the crank was correct. I found it hard to see if the double mark on the belt was aligned with the notch on the pulley. So with the belt on I cranked the engine around a full rotation of the belt to see if the double line would align with the notch. This was not easy to determine. And seemed not quite right.


Then I put the lower cover and harmonic balancer on and saw that it might be easier to line up the notch on the harmonic balancer with the 12 o'clock mark on the lower timing belt cover. So I removed the belt and moved the crank to align in a way that looked better.

The second time I put the belt on I thought things looked OK. The cam pulley mark, belt mark and cover mark aligned. The intermediate pulley mark, cover mark and belt mark aligned. And the belt double mark & crank notch looked better, and the harmonic balancer notch lined up with the 12 o'clock mark on the lower timing belt cover.

I thought I had it right. So I decided to test it by rotating the engine a full belt rotation to see if the marks would line up again. They don't seem to line up any more.

So now I am worried that I've totally botched the job. And don't know how to confirm it's right or wrong.

Can anyone give any guidance on how to check or recover from this potential screw up?

Many thanks,

-morgen
1990 Volvo 740


Now the marks on the belt don't seem to align with the marks on the cam anymore.


--
'90 740GL wagon