Thanks a lot I'll do that - where in NJ are you? I grew up in Bergen County, the northeat corner.

Monmouth County, near Asbury Park, but my father's family is from your neck of the woods... Hackensack in particular.

By the way, I think you have a 6 in your truck ? I don't know how tight the pulley is going to be on your rig, but on the 2.6 L 4 cyls I've worked on, it usually just slides right off, no puller needed.

PM me if you like...

Will do thanks - and yes, its a 6. Good Italian restaurants in your area, I do some business with Ft. Monmouth. We'll stay in touch.

V6, eh? Sadly, you will (should) use a puller. It's about a .020 press fit on the Chevy motor, but harmonic balancer pullers are cheap to buy or rent. You'll need (3)3/8" X 4 1/2" bolts (fine thread I think) with the puller. When done with surgery, use a wood block under 20 oz hammer to tap balancer back on 'till four threads can be started by hand then tighten 'er up (lightly oil crank first!). Then go have a beer...Cal

Got that! Question on the timing belt - regardless of the procedure in the manual - if the engine is running fine upon removal of the old belt and you don't move any pully's, can't you just put the new belt on in any position - right? It's certainly intuitive and I gather the procedure is thorough in the event of a movement or slip - someone just give me a sanity check, thanks.

Oops! Forgive my previous post as I didn't fully realize what motor you were working on.
You're might really taking a chance on bending a valve here. Without aligning timing marks up PRIOR to timing belt removal. What's done is done now, so compress the tensioner spring, pin it and put it back on the engine. Then put the new belt on with all the slack where the tensioner hangs and pull the pin to tighten the belt. Then rotate the engine BY HAND...use a ratchet NOT the starter! Yank the plugs if it's too hard to turn. Rotate around to timing marks and make sure everything aligns before running. Crank to cam ratio is 2:1 so you may have to rotate the engine twice for all marks to align. If the marks are off a tooth or more do the belt removal again and align all marks prior to belt install.

I'm afraid I am not following this - the engine timing was fine when I stopped the motor, so why isn't it fine now as I've put the new belt on and actually placed the belt marks in line with the pulley marks - I have NOT moved the pulley's. The new tensioner will go on after this according to the manual.

What am I missing here????

I could well be that nothing has moved, much depends on cam lobe position when the belt was removed. If you were to rotate a camshaft with a wrench you would notice resistance followed with forward motion created by valve springs aproaching compression. Also, pulling on the belt while straining to install will usually move the crankshaft. You say the belt has marks (good news!) and they line up, all may be well. Plus you have hydraulic lifters which are more forgiving (at least until they're pumped full of oil). It's sounding much better today, but I'd still rotate the motor by hand to be absolutely sure.

Thanks again - now, when you move the crank by hand, do you use the pulley bolt and the breaker bar? It seems to hard to grab by hand with the belt on, or off....?

Yessir, use the crank bolt to turn it.

I usually do this and line up the marks before removing the old belt, that way you're pretty certain about positioning.

Did ya get my PM ?