JCC615

Yes, I'm sorry, when I say dots, where yours have a slot someone has painted a white dot on mine. Where yours all line up, the stripe on my belt is nowhere near the notch on the sprocket. Which I understand you say it takes so many rotations for the belt to line back up.
I can turn the crank and line the notch up in my cam sprocket with the notch behind it, that's the notch in the back in your pictures, but when I do that my crank is no longer aligned at 12 o clock.

JCC615

I appreciate you taking all this time to help a complete stranger. I have pretty decent mechanical ability, but I'm just inexperienced with timing. I've never done my own timing jobs on my own Vehicles just because I've always been intimidated by it.

LeX2K

It sounds like your timing belt is wrong and by quite a bit but I'm skeptical it actually is because even out 1-2 teeth the engine will run horribly, the amount it sounds like it's out I don't know if the engine would run at all. I need to see pics of both cam gears and the crank gear.

Or you could put on your new timing belt, but to do that you'll either need a new hydraulic tensioner or it will have to be compressed in a vice (slowly) and a pin put in.

JCC615

It starts and runs strong until about 3 miles down the road, then the engine reacts to throttle very slowly. Slight vibration when sitting at idle, but not terrible, just noticeable.

JCC615

Pictures...

Crank lined up

Front cam...When crank is lined up, front and rear cams are at about 5 o'clock

Rear cam

Front of harmonic balancer

Back of harmonic balancer

Badly worn timing cover behind harmonic balancer

JCC615

I'm now trying to line up the cam gear marks with the rear timing cover marks. The front cam rotated and lines up perfectly. When I turn the rear cam it either goes to 2 o'clock ish, 6 o'clock ish, or 10 o'clock ish. The only way I can stop it at 12 and line up the marks is if I turn very slowly and don't let it jump past 12. Is this a major deal? Can I turn it to 12 like that and try to get the belt on, or is there a bigger problem here?

LeX2K

The rear cam (firewall side) tends to do that due to valve spring pressure this is perfectly normal. That's why I said don't stick your fingers in the spokes!

JCC615

But my problem is, the only way I can line up the rear cam with the mark/groove on the rear cover is to manually turn it and manually stop it in between a turn. In other words, when you turn the cam it has a lot of pressure for a certain amount of the turn then Pops to the next point. The alignment on this one is in the middle of that turn just before it pops to the next point by pressure.

JCC615

[QUOTE=JCC615;10618381]But my problem is, the only way I can line up the rear cam with the mark/groove on the rear cover is to manually turn it and manually stop it in between a turn. In other words, when you turn the cam it has a lot of pressure for a certain amount of the turn then Pops to the next point. The alignment on this one is in the middle of that turn just before it pops to the next point by pressure.[/

It is about a half turn so it is not to the point that it wants to pop forward if I stop it manually. Is it okay to do this and go ahead and install the belt? Or is it going to throw something off after I put everything together and do the crank rotations?

LeX2K

Do whatever you need to do to get the belt on, I hold the left cam with a wrench which putting on the belt then zip tie the belt in place. Sometimes the cam spins and messes up what I'm doing sometimes not. Once you get the belt on both cams and zip tied in place (I use two per cam gear) then you're good you can rotate the cams how you need as to get the belt correctly threaded. There is a sticky for doing this job have you read it?
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/es-...mp-how-to.html

JCC615

I read it last night. Mine has not gone as easy. Every single thing I have read and watched had all the timing marks lined up perfectly though. Nothing addressed my issue of none of my cams or crank lining up.

JCC615

I guess I will install the belt on that rear cam first so I can get it zip tied in place. This all makes me very curious how the front cam lined up when I rotated it but the rear cam didn't line up when rotated. The reason that is confusing to me is that, as in the pictures that I posted, they were both in the same five o'clock position to start with. You would think if I could line up the front one then I would also be able to line up the rear one since they both started at the same position.

JCC615

Belt went on very easily. I used several clips on each cam to hold it in place. Installed new tensioner, pulled pin, rotated crank two rotations and everything stayed lined up. Started the engine an ran it for about 30 seconds and it ran great. I couldn't finish the job because I had already returned the loaner crank puller to O'Reilly, so couldn't get the harmonic balancer back off. Things you don't think about on your first timing job. Lol. Going to go get the tool this afternoon and finish up. Fingers crossed this fixes my p1351 issue.

JCC615

All back together and so far 20 miles later NO P1351.

It drives great except for going up hills. It feels like it struggles going uphill. Will have to start researching that now.

Thanks for all the timing belt help.

LeX2K

Do you have a code reader? Always look at fuel trims that's your starting point if they are +/- more than 5-10% on the long term you know something is amiss such as lazy O2 sensors, worn plugs, ignition coils etc. basically anything involving the EFI system.