Mammoth22

Hello,

seeking some help with my current situation. I've researched many pages/forums/ search engines, but have come up empty handed in my results. The oddity that I'm facing after a minor (in my honest opinion) front end collision with the *** end of an SUV. No frame damage, and the car was running well enough to move on it's own for a limited amount of time (pulling up to the tow truck (required because coolant evacuated from the rad) and reversing down it's ramp into my garage).

The mystery here, to me, is that once I get my crank to TDC - not proven by crank pin yet* - but by Mark on gear, the cams are almost vertical, not horizontal. Additionally, at no point by manually cranking the engine am I able to insert my cam lock bar. Something must be askew, but for the engine to run as well as I feel it does, to not have resistance when manually cranking, and no other issues have shown themselves with the engine. The reason for getting the engine to this point is that a cam gear is wobbling and must be replaced, however, I do not know if this misalignment, while the car is in it's current state, warrants replacement parts, or if I need to do some more investigative work.

Any recommendations, help, or tips are more that welcomed! Thank you for reading!!

Mammoth22

Anybody?!? Before I have to tow it to the shop and pay someone

johnkk

I don't think you are at TDC despite pulley marks. The pulley has notches that must be aligned with locating lugs, so perhaps the main crank bolt was not properly torqued at a timing belt/front seal change or the hub has slipped/failed. What I would do is turn the engine with a socket and bar, so that the two large holes on the cam sprockets are facing each other. Then you should be able to get the crank locking pin in. May require some rocking to get lined up. Once the locking pin is in, put on the cam bar and remove the timing belt. Then take off the crank pulley and inspect the hub that it mounts on. It may have slipped. I'm not sure if it is keyed or exactly how it is positioned on the crank. With any luck a new crank hub will solve the issue.