I have a couple concerns.The crankshaft bolt came loose fairly easily, so I began tearing everything apart from there. Everything went somewhat smoothly with the exception of some hard to reach spots with my ratchet. Oh yeah, and the 2 quarts of coolant that leaked out when I took the water pump off! Luckily I had a bucket handy.
Okay, now my concerns. I marked and counted the teeth on the old timing belt from my cam gears to the crank sprocket before I took it off. I then marked the new timing belt and proceeded to put it on. It all lined up just fine at first. Then I began the tensioning routine and noticed after a few rotations that the marks were not inline with the marks I had made on my cam gears or crank sprocket. It was off like 6 teeth maybe more. This was very puzzling indeed. With the marks out of sync, I counted the teeth between the cam gears and the crank sprocket on the new belt while installed and the count came out to be the same. All of the TDC marks line up perfectly with the same count of teeth between the CG's and CS, but the marks on the belt weren't in the same place. Anybody know how this could happen? I'm thinking the marks don't really matter as long as the CG's and CS are still in sync.
As far as tension goes, there is some slack at the front of the belt between the 2nd cam gear and the crank. Is this normal? What exactly is the tolerance for belt slack..anyone? Also, while turning the crank I noticed that the belt tries to work it's way off the sprockets staying really close to the edge of the crank gear. I push it back on, but still makes it's way to the edge while rotating. Is this fine or cause for concern?
One more concern. When I took the crank pulley off a key came out with it. After working on my car for a few hours I was looking at the crank and noticed another key in the same place that the other key was but further into the crank. I kinda freaked out thinking, "what the hell is that doing in there still..I swore I took that out". I got a magnet, sucked it out and put it with the pulley and noticed sitting there was the key I had removed earlier. I didn't know that there were two of those dudes. This question is stupid for sure, but there are suppose to be two of those correct? One in front of the other right?
This is where I stopped for the night. I wanted to consult the board about the out of sync marks, belt slack and keys before I put anything else back together.
Again, I apologize for the long post and all the questions. I think that i'm still nervous about all this and was needing to vent a bit. Thanks for your replys.