Timing belt slipped a tooth

[Adrian_Visser]

So I replaced the timing belt on my 1984 eta on the weekend, after I had the covers off I rotated the crank until the o/t mark on the Harmonic balancer lined up with the mark on the lower cover and the cam sprocket marks didn't line up right, the arrow on the sprocket was one tooth retarded.

The thing is the car ran fine before i took it apart weird eh? I mean it idled too high which i attributed to a vac leak i couldn't find but wtf, it didn't even seem to be down on power that much...


Now I know somebody is gunna call me a liar and say I screwed up and loosened off the tensioner before i looked and it slipped or something along those lines but I DIDN"T.

I always thought that if you were off a tooth on the timing the engine would run like a bag of crap or not start or something along those lines but I guess not.

I have yet to start the car to see how it runs after I corrected the timing (oh and yes I rotated the engine through two full rotations of the crank several times by hand and there was no colliding of valves and pistons).

[Kingb]

That is why when you put on a Timing belt you rotate it 2 turns like you did and check the marks. I think that the last person to put the belt on didn't. It can be easy to pu tit on a tooth off since it is hard to put on in the first place.
THink of an adjustable timing gear. You can advance or retard the cam gear. A tooth off won't make it run like total shit but just not get the potential out of it.