ARMY!!!!! I was stationed at Ft. Eustis, VA. Have a service connected injury to my lower back that has me at 100% unemployable. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> Sucks bc I was always active (71 pushups and 85 situps) and I'm a Type A personality.

OK so here is the update. I finally was able to tinker with it today and got one of the covers off so that I could see the timing belt. I took pictures but I can't figure out how to post them. What they show is the following (as best as I can describe). ALso to avoid confusion, my niece's now husband made marks on the gear looking things and had them lined up with the arrows, not the factory white marks.
1. going by his marks, one is 3 teeth from the arrow, the other is 1
2. the belt has about 3/4" play. I did not see any damage to the belt from removing one cover.

The bottom bolt of the left (facing the engine) was being a bugger and my back has had me down for a few days and I couldn't stand to be out bent over any longer so I never got it off to look at what's behing door number 2 (trying to have some humor along with hope).

Same here. Type A and maxing my PT test. I was in Ft Hood TX, Ft Sill OK, and a couple stints here and there. Funny, my back is jacked too. What was your MOS?

Back on track- The play in the timing belt would indicate to me that it has jumped timing. They play could be caused by the tensioner failing or the belt stretching from a possible fluid leak.

I am sure you'll get some more advice that you should also consider. More than likely you will need new valves and possible head work from a machine shop. Depending on labor charges there the valves and machining could range between 200 and 400 dollars pending removal of heads. Then consider a new tensioner, timing belt, water pump, cam seals, crank seal, oil, filter, head gasket,intake gasket, guides if needed, and a here and there part. If you source the parts right you can get out of this for less than 700 dollars. This is the only conclusion I can come to over the internet though.AND pending the belt does indeed have too much play that is caused a jump in timing. A picture would help.

Sounds like a jumped timing belt but a pic would help as was mentioned. To post a pic on this forum you first need to have it already hosted on a picture sharing website. I use Webshots for most of my pictures. Once it's on Webshot's site it's pretty easy.

1) click on the album containing the picture(s) you want to share. You should see a webpage with several pictures organized in rows & columns.
2) click on the picture you want to share. You should now see a page with just this picture and not all the other pictures from the album.
3) click again on the picture you want to share. This brings up a window with 5 buttons (download, full screen, email, & link to it).
4) click on the 'link to it' button. This brings up another window titled 'post this photo' and gives you several size options (100, 200, 425, 500, & 600 pixels wide).
5) click on one of the size options. I usually choose 600 pixels.
6) copy the link info located in the box below the words 'post in forum'.
7) paste that link into your post on 4x4wire. Be sure to hit return before and after that link or it will put that picture in line horizontally with your sentence/text. If you hit the return before and after the link it will insert that picture in line vertically.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
HTH.

Agree on the timing belt, but pics are a must. I use Photobucket to host my pics.

Hopefully you can get pics posted up so we can further assist you. IF, the belt is trashed, then more than likely your valves are gone. You can get re manufactured heads for $300 a piece if they are trashed. Been there, done that. Clearwater Cylinder head is the best source. Keep posting up and we'll all figure it out with you.

And not to be THAT guy, but it reads like your niece's husband should keep his hands off that engine for a bit until we can figure this out. The factory marks on the cams are there for a reason, and are to be used to correctly time the engine. I'm not sure if I'm reading correctly when you say "my niece's now husband made marks on the gear looking things and had them lined up with the arrows, not the factory white marks" but it has me a bit concerned, and further points to a timing issue.

Gotta give another shout out for the Army folks. Desert Storm vet myself. Thank you for your service.

And thank you sir. Bosnia-Herzegovina vet myself http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/Bosnia-Herzegovina/Bosnia-Herzegovina.htm. 1st Cavalry Division. Thank you as well. HOORAH!

Oh yea, as for the vet thing, former 6 year tour in the USN myself. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/patriot.gif" alt="" />

If he didn't line up the belt to begin with, it would not have run right from the get-go. Then the comment about slack in the belt. My $0.02 is...

Critical part for the new belt install, timing marks aside, is the pre-tension setup:

1) Hydraulic tensioner: If you don't put in a new one (should have gone new based on the miles), then the old has to be compressed in a vice and a keeper pin inserted to hold it there until the job is done.

2) Tensioner puller: Pre-tension the pulley, ideally with a special tool that makes it easy to do.

Steps 2 and 3 are the ones that either get missed due to not knowing, or are skipped by the fly-by-night types that are changing the belt just to get the rig sold. The FSM covers all of this, and anyone who has not changed one of these belts, has no business doing so without real service manual info, IMO.

When done, the keeper pin gets pulled out to release the hydraulic tensioner. Done properly, there will be no resistance to the keeper. You can pull it with a flick of your pinky.

The next problem you will have is that to check for compression, you will have to pull the intake. And it snowballs from there with 200k+ miles. (Do the plugs, VC and plug tube gaskets for starters. Also should have done the oil seals on the front of the engine when the t-belt was done.)


GL...