Cam timing on a 5SFE

[PuGZoR]

Hey boys and maybe girls,

The timing belt snapped on my brother's girlfriend's Apollo/Camry equipped with the 5S-FE of awesomeness. Now because the timing belt has snapped and wasn't replaced when it should have been, the cam timing is all out of whack.

Does anyone know of any guides or how to determine where the cams/gears should be sitting in relation to TDC? Pretty sure there's some kind of trick to it, but I don't know it!

Thanks!

[2jzhilux]

Pull out no 1 spark plug and make sure piston is at the top then there is a hole in the middle of the cam gear shine a torch and get a mirror and there will be a mark that lines up on the cam cap when it where it should be , it should be pointing straight up
and the crank there is a mark on the timing belt pulley outer part and a little mark on the oil pump cover ,line them up and chuck the belt on and make sure the belt is tight from crank pulley to cam on the front side.

[DrNick]

hey mate, you can grab the service manual from my website on http://www.suprawa.com/technical.htm

i find getting the valve timing right on that engine to be particularly fiddly and wasted a lot of time on the last timing belt change i did.

the biggest problem i find is that there is no actual notch on the cam pulley - instead you are instructed to poke a paperclip through a hole and feel for the notch in the bearing cap. now this notch is a bit bigger than a paperclip and the belt can be off by a tooth but it may still 'feel' ok. the second thing is that after aligning the pulleys and setting the timing, the timing belt tensioner itself often pulls the belt forward a tooth.

since its a bit tricky, my advice to you is to start the engine and test it before you actually tighten up the side engine mount or the wheel, that way if you got it wrong its not a huge effort to go back to move it a bit.

a final tip - after you tighten up the timing belt tensioner you generally turn the engine over twice by hand and recheck the valve timing. when you do this also when turning the crank pulley, only turn it clockwise, if you miss the spot you have to go all the way around again turning it anticlockwise has some undesirable effects on the nice job you just did of aligning everything properly