Mark,

Wow – sorry to hear about that idler seizing.

As you know, if you had been able to mark that belt (i.e. if you weren’t in this unusual situation with the failure) then your life would be much easier. But it will still work out (just be careful).

Let me make a suggestion that I hope helps. The problem is figuring how much slack there should or shouldn’t be in the belt (in particular on the side that goes from the front cam sprocket, over the idler pulley, and to the crank sprocket). Perhaps try this –based on what I recall being the situation when I did my TB.

Loosen the idler pulley until you have a mid amount of play side-to-side. Then put the belt over that idler with it being snug in the sense that there is no slop. (You are trying to reduce the number of teeth between the cam and the crank, by about a tooth or so, below what it would be if you just looped the belt over the idler with the idler not having been loosened. With the idler not loosened it seems somewhere in between - not all that snug, but too difficult to pull the belt tighter to snug it up without moving the crank or something... Loosen the pulley a bit more if you need to in order to get to this snug situation.) Sorry I'm not saying that better.

You may want to pry the idler (gently) to get it centered before you fully tighten the bolt (you can judge whether or not this seems necessary). Neither the cams or the crank should move as you tighten down the pulley.

The belt on the “right side” of the system will then be nice and snug. On the tensioner side the belt will seem significantly looser than on the “right side”.

Don’t release the tensioner until you have rotated the engine around (two full rotations of the crank) to re-check the marks. If they line up, repeat just to be sure. The battery hold down should serve to keep the belt in place while you make this check. You just need to keep a bit of tension on the “left side” - really you just don't want it "floppy" at this point.

Hopefully you’re lucky and things line up. If not, try and figure out whether it means you need things more snug (on/over that idler pulley) to keep from ending up off a tooth or so. Also keep in mind the span of belt between the two cams (which should not have any slop in it).

I’ll think about this some more and see if I can come up with something else, but I think that you need to focus on the tension in the “right side” which is put on by you loosening that idler pulley and then snugging it back over and in place.

Best of luck.

P.S. I'm presuming in the process nothing has moved too much relative to something else (i.e. you didn't rotate the crank or the cams independently of each other...). As you rotate the engine during your check, feel for anything that seems like interference...

Also, continue to do research on this to make sure you get it right – trust but verify! Hopefully someone else who might have been in a similar situation will jump in here with advice.

 

Any pictures?

 

Thanks Mem for that write-up. I do appreciate you taking the time. I ended up figuring it out before I saw your post. It took about 3 more tries with recompressing the tensioner but I finally got it.

 

I have same problem with my 2002 v6 Accord Vtec engine.The marks lined up in the peep holes in the cover before removing them, the crank was at TDC(The center mark on Harmonic balancer..there are 3 close together, and 1 further away, CCW.)When I removed the covers, and H Balancer,the Keyway is facing straight up towards the center of engine, and the cam gears have one tooth on each that is notched on the end of the tooth. This tooth is very close to the painted mark on the cam gear,but not exactly.The notches are aligned with a cast line on the back covers. Is this the proper orientation for installing the belt? The left camshaft wants to "spring" CCW about 1/4 turn from the marked position, if it is moved even slightly.It resists being put back into proper position.
This causes the marks to be off when installing the belt.I have tried several times with no success.What Am I doing wrong?Please help!
Thanks to anyone that can help!

 

Here is a link to an Acura forum with so very good pics that might help you, same engine family but bigger displacement:

http://tl.acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=695821

or

http://www.alldatadiy.com/alldata/A...46506/41746536/41746537/34853741/100411974/34853743/34872060/34849574/142186403

One item to add regarding the back cam pulley. Your going to have to slowly turn the cam pulley and eventually it will have enough resistance to hold once you align the timing mark.

-Giewont