VVTI Timing belt alignment marks cams and crank

[take123]

Been reading several of the timing belt guides and watched several videos as well, all very helpful and make this much easier. I have a VVTI engine and right now about to remove the harmonic dampener off the crank, so I set the crank to the "0" mark first to double check the cam and crank are lined up before disassembling further.

At the crank's "0" mark on the plastic cover, the two cams are a bit ahead of the "I" mark. I have read that I should really use the metal dimple reference on the 2-3 o'clock location of the Crank for the Crank alignment, not use the plastic cover marks as reference as the plastic can be inaccurate. However to check the metal dimple I will have to remove the harmonic pulley and the plastic cover first.

Do you guys think everything looks okay here to start removing the dampener, or did the previous owner not do this right?

I'm thinking as next step, I'll move the cams so that the "I" notches line up, and then remove the harmonic dampener, and then check if the crank notch is matching with the metal dimple on the engine.

My thought is to not trust the crank's plastic cover marks right now. Note I removed the spark plugs already, hoping that will relieve some cam tension when I remove the belt. I read for VVTI, we have to move the cams to the "T" marks first before removing the belt, as that is where the tension is least (to avoid kickback of the cams).

 

[OrionZodiac]

For VVTI engines, you have to rotate to top dead center first (use the metal dimple and I marks once you remove the plastic and the harmonic balancer), then rotate counter clockwise to 45 degrees before top dead center. Then you remove the tensioner. Once you remove the tensioner, the cams , which are under load from the springs will go out of alignment. Use your muscles or a wrench to rotate the cams back to the I mark (either clockwise, or counter clockwise depending on where they end up relative to the I mark). Then rotate the crank to the dimple. Now everything should be aligned. Before you rotate the crank to the dimple, note how sensitive the cams are position, any little bump, and they will spring either forward or backwards. So keep that in mind when putting on the belt, you have to be very careful.
To make it easier to put on the belt, the manual advises to advance the drivers side cam 1/2 tooth clockwise and the passenger side cam 1 tooth clockwise

Perhaps someone here can post pictures of the manual so you can see

 

[take123]

Thanks, that helps a lot. I saw what you mention regarding 1/2 tooth and 1 tooth, from this Video. And I'm following that instruction.


Yes I did notice the Cams in my VVTI are very springy, if I have it at "l" top dead center mark, it will want to spring left or right, I have to hold it still.

After taking apart the timing belt and water pump, I did find a piece of chewed up plastic in the crankshaft plastic cover area, I'm surprised this thing still ran. And the waterpump is filthy. I need to do a hard scrub and clean this whole thing out. Glad I'm doing this now instead of waiting for something bad to happen...

 

[take123]

I gave the filthy engine a good clean with soap and sponge. It looked like the old owner had some coolant spillage from the water pump, pulleys were all rusted to junk it was nasty.... Now she's cleaner, mounted on some new pulleys, scraped off the old gasket, and add new water pump.

I replaced the timing belt successfully and everything lines up even after several rotations.

As a note, before I pulled the tensioner grenade pin, I noticed the passenger cam was around 1mm off to the right, and the driver cam was around 0.5mm off to the right. After pulling the tensioner all cams line up perfectly after giving the crank a few rotations.

I installed the harmonic pulley and plastic cover, and everything lines up at 0 on the crank and the cam's marks are lined up with the "l" perfectly. Wasn't as hard as I thought. It looks like the original owner had some installation issues, it was not perfectly lined up, maybe it skipped some tooth from the plastic piece stuck in the crankshaft....

When installing the timing belt, I had to put both cams at the "T" position as that's the spot they had the least tension, both cams on my VVTI wanted to jump very aggressively I couldn't hold them still. Since moving from "l" to "T", the crank will need to move forward a little bit, so I manually moved the crank a little bit forward, and then relied on the new OEM timing belt marks (which thankfully had Cam and Crank marks) to figure out where to put the crankshaft. I think the original owner had a non-OE belt, it had no markings. If I didn't have the timing belt markings not sure how i'd do this job so recommend buy OEM belt.

I started with Driver side cam as the VVTI has an outer metal wall making it harder to insert, then I moved down to the Crank. Went under the truck to make sure the LINE and HOLE on the crankshaft matches with the markings on Crank markings on the timing belt. I had to move the camshaft right a little bit or left, to loosen or tighten as needed.

Then I moved to mount the passenger side cam, and that was real tight to put in the belt. I had to push the the driver cam counter clockwise a little to make the belt looser to line up with the marks on the Timing Belt and the Passenger Cam. I rotated the crankshaft clockwise a little, to give some slack to mount the remaining belt onto the passenger cam.

After all the marks are lined up, I mounted the timing belt tensioner but did not pull the grenade pin. I notice you cannot spin the crank to do alignment test if you don't have the tensioner or else the belt falls loose (skips teeth). With the tensioner mounted but not pulled, it's enough tension to move around and check alignment. The alignment was off by 1mm / 0.5mm on the cams with tensioner not pulled, so then I pulled it after I was satisfied after 3 total cam rotations showing decent alignment. Then spun it some more times and it was perfect.