last time I posted everyone agreed that the timing belt was ca-put in my '92 station wagon loyale....so, after replacing both belts, cam thingee's, water pump, went to start up the car and it is turning over (not starting) and sounding worse than ever....like it's skipping or something...actually it's making the sound a car makes when the engine is already running and then you try to start it again (hope that makes sense)....what the heck's wrong? Please help...thanks guys!

Forgot to mention, timing was double and triple checked....what is going on??

hard to say. typical issue with timing belt install is that it's not done properly. the cams have to be lined up perfectly. which isn't hard, but tyipcally it's done wrong the first time you do it...the cams are one notch off or more. or if the distributor was removed at all that thing is EASY to get lined up incorrectly.

 

but it shouldn't be making a sound like the car doesn when trying to start after it's already running. important question:

it never made this noise before the timing belt broke?

No it didn't, this is a new sound. Everything is lined up with the timing unless I'm missing something?

How did you check the timing?

 

 

nipper

Lined up all the points like it says in the Haynes manual (and what other people have said on the forum)....now the car starts but is backfiring and won't idle, it runs rough and seems to be fine once I rev it past 3000rpm but anything under that and it runs crappy....thought it may be a spark plug problem so replaced the distributor and the plugs and it's still doing it.....I'm about ready to push this thing off a cliff.

did you spin the engine over one revolution by hand after you put the driver side belt on?

 

 

So, when it was all done, with the flywheel at the 3 marks, the two cams are 180* apart from each other?

If you have a timing light, check the timing that way. It sounds like something is 180 degrees out of wack, which is easy to do.

 

 

nipper

did you spin the engine over one revolution by hand after you put the driver side belt on?

 

 

So, when it was all done, with the flywheel at the 3 marks, the two cams are 180* apart from each other?

 

yes....that's what we did.....

It sounds to me one or both of the cams is a tooth off.

oh man do I feel like an idiot.....went through the whole thing again, and the Haynes manual (which was highly misleading with their cam diagram)....they were out the 180...guess I should have checked a fourth time, and not settled for a third time. Thank you all so much for your input, you saved my "roo" from being thrown off a cliff and myself from a mental breakdown (not to mention a huge mechanic's bill)....

Gald you got it PennyMc. I remember now about hearing there was a problem with the Haynes procedure in the manual.