OK guys, I'm right in the middle of changing my timing belt on my 96 Legacy GT, 2.5 DOHC.

 

I'm chaning it just as a precaution and the engine ran fine before.

 

I have lined up the crank pulley timing mark to the 0 degree indicator on the belt cover to get to TDC and gotten everything off to look at the belt & sprockets.

 

What I found was none of the sprocket marks lined up.

 

So I turned the engine over until all the marks did line up and then checked to see where the notch on the crank pulley fell. It was positioned 90 degrees clockwise from the 0 degree mark.

 

When I take the pulley off the crank sprocket is positioned so the two holes are on each side of the center line and the keyway is pretty much pointing straight down.

 

As far as I can tell the crank pulley mark is incorrect, maybe not right for the car or just mismarked. The mark is only 2 little "dings" and not a nice machined mark.

 

I'm thinking the best thing to do is to disregard the crank pulley marks (maybe remark it) and replace the belt using the sprocket notches.

 

Is this correct?????

IIRC, the haynes manual instructs you to first line up the mark on the crank pulley with the timing mark on the timing cover with cylinder #1 at TDC. It then tells you to remove the timing covers, then turn the engine clockwise until the little mark on the crank sprocket lines up with the mark on the oil pump. At that point the cam sprockets should line up, but they won't line up exactly. Once the crank pulley is off you should use the marks on the sprockets for proper alignment.

Check out the Endwrench pdf file...

http://www.endwrench.com/pdf/engine/FtTimingBeltReplaceF00.pdf

Nice link.

 

From what I see now the marks on the timing belt sprockets aren't supposed to line up at TDC. Since the manual was asking me to line that up first I was under the impression that everything would be lined up.

 

Not the case I guess.

 

Looks like I'm doing it right.