No acceleration: Symptom of incorrect timing belt change?

jerrah · Postby **jerrah** » Wed Sep 15, 2010 6:36 pm

I changed my timing belt last weekend. It started up and idled ok but I hadn't dríven it.

On trying this afternoon the car has NO acceleration. I only took it up the street a little then back home again.

Sound like symptom of a timing belt job gone wrong?

JBT · Postby **JBT** » Wed Sep 15, 2010 7:51 pm

It's quite possible that you have the cam timing incorrectly set. Running smoothly but lacking power/feeling dead is a general indication of retarded cam timing. It is not that hard to get it wrong by a tooth or two.

mattah · Postby **mattah** » Wed Sep 15, 2010 9:32 pm

I put my belt on wrongly the first time I did the change. Then I found a great pic on the net (linked below).

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=40436&p=525191#p525191

jerrah · Postby **jerrah** » Thu Sep 16, 2010 12:09 am

Thanks for the picture. Those timing marks though don't appear to match the marks on the back plate? If that runs great, but I'm still feeling a bit lost. I think I'll have to have a good look around before the weekend.

mattah · Postby **mattah** » Thu Sep 16, 2010 12:45 am

jerrah wrote:Thanks for the picture. Those timing marks though don't appear to match the marks on the back plate? If that runs great, but I'm still feeling a bit lost. I think I'll have to have a good look around before the weekend.

I think it's just the angle of the photo. If you look at the bottom of the teeth with the mark, it lines up perfectly with the marks on the backing plate. My car looked exactly like that when it was finished, and ran great.