Timing Belt Problems

[nfpgasmask]

OK, I see what you are saying, but this is why it is still very confusing to me.

Before I removed my old timing belt, I rotated the crankshaft pulley a few times, just so I could see everything line up and get a firm understanding of that.

Then I turned the crankshaft pulley and lined up both camshaft pulleys like so:



Once both camshaft pulleys lined up, the crankshaft pulley lined up like so:


At that point, I removed the old timing belt. With the old timing belt off, the half-circle notch on the BACK of the crankshaft sprocket is on the OPPOSITE side of the green painted tick mark on the FRONT of the crankshaft sprocket. The half-circle notch lined up with the white paint mark on the housing like so (note this pick shows the new belt installed):


I then installed my new timing belt from there to line up with all the marks, and it worked perfectly. So I still do not see how my instructions are off from the Isuzu instructions.

IMO, there is one or more of the following scenarios happening:

1) People, myself included, could be reading and interpreting the various instructions out there in different ways and thus, confusion is created.

2) The Isuzu instructions, videos and diagrams are explaining this is a way that confuses some folks.

3) My instructions are explaining this in a way that confuses some folks despite my absolute best effort to spell this out as simply as possible.

4) Some people who HAVE NOT ever done this maintenance are chiming in with opinions and information without actual experience to back their claims up.

5) People are not understanding where the marks are and where they should be lining up, or they are looking at my photos or the diagrams wrong.

6) People are not reading carefully enough and paying attention to the different things happening, ie, camshaft vs crankshaft, notch on back vs notch on front, dotted line on old belt vs dotted line on new belt, etc.

7) And lastly, the Isuzu instructions could be either wrong, or perhaps there is some variance between our VX's and the Trooper's 3.5. Meaning, maybe there are some slight differences between years or models that could be causing us to pull our hair out. Despite the fact that many of us on here could be considered VehiCROSS gurus, we don't know everything about what happened during the manufacturing process, video creation, and eveything else that happened while these vehicles were being manufactured. Errors are made, even by the big companies.

The only way that I could have done this the "right" way, would have been to remove my old belt, and then turn the crankshaft pulley 180 degrees to get the half-circle notch to line up at the opposite side, which imo, would have screwed up my timing and would have been completely wrong. The white dot and the half-circle notch line up. The green painted tick mark and the line mark on the housing line up. Both of those align opposite eachother.

I hope this makes sense, and again, I believe my instructions are right, and there is just some confusion in the interpretation.

Bart

Edit PS: Slowpro, I just reread what you wrote above.

If you check the Service Bulletin that Mark posted, you'll see a good picture at Step 26, which says, "Align the dotted-white line of the timing belt with the white timing mark of the crank sprocket (180 degrees from TDC timing notch)".

I absolutely DID NOT do the opposite of what you are saying, clearly presented in my photos above, so which one of my pictures is confusing people? Or am I still confused? The "white timing mark" the Bulletin is referring to, MUST be the white dot at 180 degrees from the TDC notch, correct????