alright, im just looking through some things with my car and notice that what should be the tension side of my timing belt, is actually SUPER loose. observe:



the side that says "tension" in that picture actually has about an inch of play in it. so this needs to be changed. to fix it, i plan on loosening the tensioner pulley, taking off the belt at the cam gear, and putting back on a tooth or two off, yet without spinning the crank sprocket at all so that it and the cam gear are still in the same relation to each other.

right way to go about doing this?

 

T01, once your engine starts running, there will be lots of tension on the tension side.
When it sits it doesn't really matter how much tension is on either side (as long as its tight enough)
Now an inch of play is to much, so check both your tensioners.
Moving the belt a couple teeth over wont help your tension issue when the engine is not running.
make sense?

 

yeah, that what i was thinking, that the belt would come into tension with the engine running. i thought i remember at one point having the "tension" side in tension when i replaced the timing belt.

but anyway, my tensioner pulley is almost in as far as it will go, so i dont know about making it tighter. ill have to check things out one day when i have more time and tools.

 

Now this probably isnt your problem, but just in case.
I think the length of the timing belt is different between the 1.8L and the 2.0L, so if you got the wrong one, you could have a very loose belt cool.gif

 

How old is the belt?

 

changed it a couple months ago. almost brand new.