I got a timing question

[gamingmasterx]

Okay, I got a 03 sohc. The crank sensor went bad because of belt debris from old belts. In the process of changing this sensor the belts are being replaced to. My problem is that the cam and oil timing marks dont line up with the crank and rear balance marks. They are off. This is probably because of the way the car stopped, but i dont really know. Nobody really talks about a situation where their marks aren't lining up so I have no clue what I'm doing. Taking my chances I rotated the balancer belt without the timing belt attached to finish lining up the marks. I used a stick to ensure that the crank was at tdc by putting it in the spark plug hole and watching it peak. I put everything back on to the point of the timing belt tensioner pulley and have yet to set it correctly because I want to make sure things are right. I rotate the crankshaft 90 degress manually and it does feel like there may be some areas of resistance and im not sure if thats because of the lack of the tensioner pulley being done or its the crank that needs to be put back the way it was.

[Stewi]

when you speak of rotating the crank and feeling resistance, is the timing belt on or not? are all the spark plugs in? There shouldnt be much resistance if the spark plugs arent in and the belt isnt on. If the belt is on, the tension is the resistance from cam on the valves.

[gamingmasterx]

The belts are on and the plugs are in. I only took out the one closest to the timing belts to reference for tdc. Like I said though, the car was running fine until it stopped, so im guessing if anything happened to misalign those pulleys then it was probably after the sensor failed, but it could have been because the balancer belt was sorta loose. I took the timing belt off again yesterday and put the balancer and crank pulleys back in the location that they were in before I correctly aligned them with turning crank bolt with only the balancer belt attached. Now everythings back like it was with both belts on and I still feel that resistance when turning the crank, with both belts attached. It doesn't feel like it did before I started the job. Before it would rotate and reach a point of high resistance which corresponded with the compression stroke of the engine. Now it reaches a resistance about everything eight of a rotation and continues in this pattern. Is there any way to know that the cam and crank are in sync. What do I have to take off of the engine so that I can align these back right.

[Stewi]

to make sure the cam and crank are in sync you just need to line up the timing mark on the cam gear to the mark on the motor and the timing mark on the crank gear to the mark on the motor. take all the plugs out and then tell me if you have resistance. If the cam timing is off, that resistance might be your piston hitting the valves.

[gamingmasterx]

Okay, I took the plugs out and the tension when turning the crank is considerably less, but there are still points where it does have resistance. Those marks wouldn't line up when I started the job. It looked like the crank and rear balance was only off a little, but i suppose it could have been more if the line doesn't indicate tdc at every rotation but every so many rotations? Huh? I dont know, what should I do? Is there any way to ensure that the cam and crank are in their correct positions other that using the lines.

[Shadow19]

There would also be resistance if your pistons are hitting your valves.....................

[silversurfer]

there is a way to make sure take the valve cover off , every time you rotate the crank and the tdc mark comes to the alignment the intake valve should open and then close then the exhaust valve should open to expell all of the spent gases.Once the intake velve opens that is the compression stroke , then your lines should match perfectly, you might have aligned the marks to the exhaust stroke which will cause the marks to be off, remember the marks are not always in alignment only on the tdc mark of the compression stroke, I had the same problem on my oo and no one here new what i was talking about it was funny , its like i am speaking korean, hope this helps any more questions pm me.