Timing Belt help

[Iantboyd]

How do you get the timing belt to stay centered on the pulleys and idlers? I centered it and then after a few revolutions it moves back toward the engine and rubs on the black metal cam gear backing plate. any tricks?

[Iantboyd]

doh! heres a picture of where it is rubbing. The plate is flush with the block.

[Iantboyd]

Ok took some video to help describe my issue. I hope I can get some feedback.

[Iantboyd]

Heres the order of the pulley pieces, top = first on the crank

[gofanu]

Not engine specific, but in belt drives, the belt always tries to move toward the tight side. That's why flat belt pulleys are always crowned in the center; the belts move toward center no matter what.
So, it is likely that you have a pulley out of line, such that the side toward the engine is tighter. If you are lucky, the idler/tensioner bracket is loose or bent. Otherwise, the only idea I have is that you have the dreaded bad crank nose problem.

FRM

[Iantboyd]

Hmm, is it possible the waterpump casting could put the timing belt tensioners out of alignment? It is some no name one, (It was free and new so I thought I would give it a try). I ask because it didnt rub before, the tensioners are a good brand name.

[gofanu]

I've not yet had to do one of these, so I do not know. If the tensioner bracket is located all or partly by the pump, then yes. Can you measure the old & new pumps? Might put a long straight edge against the tensioner pulley to see if it looks parallel to the engine.

FRM

[Iantboyd]

I'll have to go out and check tomorrow. Im just glad I caught it before I put it all back in the car.

[Iantboyd]

What I am going to do is, take off the pump thats on there and put the old one on. Install the tensioners and see if that resolves the problem. if not I will check the tensioners with the old ones. If non of those fix it, well I guess I am screwed.

[DuRWooD]

Couldn't watch the video on my phone, but is the backing plate bent? I had a bent backing plate hitting my timing belt in that area on a B6T.

[jay]

As always, if it was fine before you messed with it and it wasn't afterward, go back to step 1. Is it a new belt? is it rubbibg only part of each revolution or is it constant? if it's only part time then it's just croooked from sitting in a box and it may be worth running it for a few minutes and see if it straightens out. If it's constant, then there's an alignment issue. So if the only other thing you did was waterpump, check that next. Cranknose issue isn't known for messing with timing belt. It shows in the acc belts first and breaks long before anything else happens. And if the belt wasn't rubbing before, then like durwood says unless you bent the backing plate, then that watherpump aint right. Last time I did one I don't recall any gotchas, seems to me it's one of those goes on only one way sorta things, so I accuse it of having a crooked pulley and being worth somewhat less than you paid for it. Repent and go get a not Chinese made real goldern waterpump and sin no more.

[Iantboyd]

As always, if it was fine before you messed with it and it wasn't afterward, go back to step 1. Is it a new belt? is it rubbibg only part of each revolution or is it constant? if it's only part time then it's just croooked from sitting in a box and it may be worth running it for a few minutes and see if it straightens out. If it's constant, then there's an alignment issue. So if the only other thing you did was waterpump, check that next. Cranknose issue isn't known for messing with timing belt. It shows in the acc belts first and breaks long before anything else happens. And if the belt wasn't rubbing before, then like durwood says unless you bent the backing plate, then that watherpump aint right. Last time I did one I don't recall any gotchas, seems to me it's one of those goes on only one way sorta things, so I accuse it of having a crooked pulley and being worth somewhat less than you paid for it. Repent and go get a not Chinese made real goldern waterpump and sin no more.

Lol, true I am ashamed, this is definitely a prime example of junk(crosses fingers anyways). The plate is fraught and true, I made sure to get a fresh virgin plate as the original had been messed with when some one pry'd on it to get a look at the belt it would seem. I'll report back soon.

[FE3-323]

the BP's & hell even my FE3 are notorious for walking into their own path of where they want to be. To which 95% of the time isn't far off center.

how far does it want to walk with that back cover plate off??

[Iantboyd]

the BP's & hell even my FE3 are notorious for walking into their own path of where they want to be. To which 95% of the time isn't far off center.

how far does it want to walk with that back cover plate off??

Hard to say, if it wasn't rubbing the backing plate it'd probably hit the waterpump and if that wasnt there Im not sure it wouldn't just walk right off the pulleys all together.

Anyways, I went out and pulled everything off. Turns out that at least a majority of the problem was the pump. In the pictures you can see that the oem pump has nice machined surfaces and that the DNJ piece of **** wasn't machined at all. So I put the oem one back on and got everything setup up and at first I was worried that didnt fix it but sure enough it did. apprently the belt just doesnt want to ride on the center of the pulleys but it definitely isn't rubbing or going to.

"new" dnj waterpump


heres where I believe the interference comes from


how it should look

[FE3-323]

get a digital caliper on those points
you'll find out real quickly if one is too far off casting