98 Montero 2.5 Harmonic Balancer broke

Swift_45a

Observer
Internal Combustion Engine, or fossil fuel based engines.

This is proving to be a total **********, I'm off by a fraction on the crankshaft timing sprocket that's causing the sputter/shutdown and I'm losing patience and have come to hate interference engines with a passion as I still have to put this thing back together.

I'd pay someone to come out and just set it for me but none of the techs at my old place in VW are in, and my neighbor that works at Toyota never got back to me on having a tech come out and set it for me. The slightest amount of variance ends up knocking off by that amount when I'm putting tension on the belt. I'm sure its a technique thing I'm just not getting because I end up on time on the cams and only slightly off on the crank regardless of where I start and how much tension I apply at the end.
 

PacS14

Adventurer
What I did on mine was have everything apart, set the tensioner in place without removing the locking pin, align the crankshaft to timing and the driver side cam too, the passenger side cam on mine would move so I left it at the prior stop counterclockwise, I put the belt on the crankshaft used a clamp to hold it in place, then to the passenger side cam which was not perfectly aligned to where it should stop, but I aligned the belt to the mark and put another clamp there, then I routed the belt to the driver side, once there I pulled on the belt to be able to get it on the driver side cam and Shazam! At this point I double check the marks and timing alignment, released the tensioner pin, removed the clamps, rotated the crankshaft (I forgot how many times the FSM calls for) and made sure it went back to perfect alignment. I hope it helps you out!
 

PacS14

Adventurer
If in your case is the driver side cam that won't align apply the same principle and start with the belt on that side too, the whole point is to along the belt to the marks in the correct position prior to releasing the tensioner pin.
 

Salonika

Monterror Pilot
Not to divert too much but I agree entirely, EV’s are in their infancy and yet are already superior in most ways. I recently bought an electric lawn mower and have never looked back. I was so done with dealing with the maintenance on my old mower, never again. What keeps my mower running? A battery, an on off switch, some wire and an electric motor. Pretty simple. I agree that in the next 10-20 years as people get used to EV’s we will look back at all the time spent with ICE maintenance and wonder what the he** we were thinking.
 

PacS14

Adventurer
EVs are coming up and they are doing great, unfortunately for long distance travel, or constant travel you have to deal with charging times, specially overlanding, for home equipment and tools they are great, for in town work etc too, but once you start thinking about cross country travel/400+ miles is when EVs are not there yet. In my case I've driven from Houston TX to Mooresville NC non stop a few times a year, only stop for gas and food, can't do that on an EV just yet.
 
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Swift_45a

Observer
EVs are coming up and they are doing great, unfortunately for long distance travel, or constant travel you have to deal with charging times, specially overlanding, for home equipment and tools they are great, for in town work etc too, but once you start thinking about cross country travel/400+ miles is when EVs are not there yet. In my case I've driven from Houston TX to Mooresville NC non stop a few times a year, only stop for gas and food, can't do that on an EV just yet.

Agreed, I drove the Model 3 Performance model (dual motor AWD) for 750 miles running up and down PCH from Santa Barabara/Big Sur to Southern OC and had to recharge 2 times as I was pushing it hard, luckily there are plenty of superchargers along the area. But it must be noted that the highest trim Cybertruck has 500+ Mile range and in tri-motor trim. I doubt you're going to MOAB every week from the E. Coast, so it could t fit the bill... also Gran Junction isn't far away, either. I have done the drive many times and had to perserve my gas (turn off AC, close windows to reduce drag) until I got back to CO to get gas.

And while I'm still committed to transition to EV leaving me only with the S13 and a liter bike in terms of ICE when this Montero is done (I still have a running 2nd Gen 96 SR back in SoCa) as I will never finish my SR at this point as it needs a complete suspension overhaul and valve stem seals. I put a deposit for a dual motor cybertruck when it came out, only $100 and refundable, so I might follow through eventually after the first few iterations while they get the kinks out so maybe by 2022/23 I'll get it.

Update: Well, it turns out I'm way better at setting timing belts than I gave myself credit for but was completely oblivious of the fact that I disconnected the MAF sensor when I took off the parts to get to the timing belt. So, after I got that back on she purred right to life after what had to seriously be the 32nd timing of adjusting the belt. It was more a relief for my sanity that I wasn't going mad; I used to be a tech and have several years not just in the Auto Industry but also in Motorsports and if I even took more than a few hours, let alone more than a day, to get something like this sorted I went hungry (and would rightly be made fun by everyone) as I was mainly doing warranty work at Nissan and I had a long line of transmissions, re-flashed ECU or head consoles to get to. I wanted to move over to Leafs but then I decided to take my chances at Tesla but instead went to go work for Kimbal Musk and try my hand at SpaceX--I was there at the Launch site in Boca Chica earlier this year before COVID ruined everything.

So in summary: I got the new sprocket from Mitsubishi on Monday, and it's Thursday... and only now have I got the rig running. Granted I took Tuesday off for business and school exams, but still.

So, despite being disspaointed in myself for missing something so obvious I learned a lot and left this thread fillwed with useful videos/links so it was not all lost. Still, I can't say I'm satisfied but just reliefed I can start putting it all back together now and hopefully have her up and running in a day or 2.
 
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Salonika

Monterror Pilot
Everyone should remember, EV’s are just starting......these are the Model-T’s we are talking about today. Wait 10 or 20 years, they’ll get the battery and charger situation sorted out.
 

Swift_45a

Observer
Everyone should remember, EV’s are just starting......these are the Model-T’s we are talking about today. Wait 10 or 20 years, they’ll get the battery and charger situation sorted out.

That's far too early, the Model S is nearly a decade old (2012) and with P100D formats and 400 mile range and AP3 introduction last year its more like a mid 30s Packard like this one:

1934-Packard-Eight-Model-1101-Touring2.jpg


The Roadster 2, which will be trimotor like the highest trim Cybertruck will be a massive game changer that will be the equivalent of Fuel Injection from Carb systems and will obliterate the ICE Supercar/Hypercar competition.

Don't get me wrong, they still have a long way to go, but lets not forget that it was only a few years ago where the Nissan Leaf, with its limited range and horrible Battery reliability, was the only game in town. And to be honest it doesn't feel at all like a car, like the i3/EV Golf/Leaf does, it feels more like a rover for space or a big computer with wheels.

My only real issue is that Tesla operates on a closed source system and working on it is really limited, but that guy one guy who hacks on these has been showing a lot of promise for those who like to wrench on thier own machines. He doesn't have access to the Super Charger system since he hacked his MOdel S from a couple of salvaged chassis, which is already a deal breaker for 99% of people but it does show what is possible.
 

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