Yes, I decided to do my timing belt replacement at 8pm Sunday night...

[100_Percent_Juice]

For those of you who don't know I bought my car back in 06 with 50k miles on it. I knew that it had been in some kind of accident but I didn't understand the extent until I got under it and dug around.

Anyways, I stated doing my timing belt tonight and when I took the covers off and turned the crank to line everything up, I noticed that the driver side cams looked off. PIC:


The paint marks match up on the driver side but the factory marks do not. Its as if someone just mis marked the cam gear and it looks like its off 1 tooth. I assume that the factory doesn't use a paint marker when the car is put together so would that mean the timing belt was replaced before I bought the car? Could an accident be serious enough to require a new timing belt?? Should I have gotten a check engine light?

The other thing I noticed that will probably need replacing is the bottom gasket on the middle cam cover. PIC:

This seems like a dealer only part. I guess I will find out tomorrow when I call around.

[sperry]

I don't actually remember the way the cams are supposed to line up. That does look like it's off by a tooth, but the only real way to be sure is to count teeth on the timing belt between all the marks. I think the service manual has all the specs... Check out http://seccs.org/tech.

I was missing that lower gasket on my car for a while too. At one point some shop must have lost it. When I noticed it was missing, I just uses some make-a-gasket to build up a rubber seal there. Note that I let it dry on the timing cover before installing it... so it wasn't actually glued down, it was just a means to cover the game like the original part. Later when I had the motor apart, I scraped off the gasket and bought one of the OEM parts.

[Dean]

What Scott said.

Counting teeth is the only way to be sure. Don't trust gear positions or marks on the timing belt.

[100_Percent_Juice]

Makes sense to count teeth but, what I'm saying is that the physical metal groves in the cam gears on the driver side seem off one tooth but the paint marks are aligned. Like the person doing the job just made a mistake. It doesn't really effect me now as I'm taking that belt off to install the new one and will align the factory marks not the paint. I will count the teeth on the belt when I take it off to see though.

Thanks for the quick replys.

[Dean]

If you turn it another 1/2 of a tooth clockwise, the alignment marks will line up perfectly.

Due to the tensioner and belt stretch or lack there of, you may not be able to get things perfectly lined up all at once which is normal and why you count teeth between the specified marks, and just get the alignments as close as possible.

[Kevin M]

Call KSpeed, with all the timing belt kits that have gone on, that gasket is probably laying around, since most cars don't need them replaced.

[100_Percent_Juice]

Good idea I will do that first thing in the morning.

[MPREZIV]

1: The "double marks" on the gears are NOT supposed to line up perfectly with the belt installed. They're just for reference, so you know when you're approximately lined up for installation.

2: There isn't supposed to be a gasket there... What you have in the picture is all that's supposed to be there.

[100_Percent_Juice]

Yeah I forgot to update this thread. You are right about the gasket. I got to the dealer and when Joe handed me the part I said ohhh nevermind.

Also, the right top cam gear was off 1 tooth but all of the other marks were correct after taking the belt off and counting everything. I will make a more detailed post of everything once I have time.