Engine help needed - 3.5L SOHC 1998 Gen 2.5

nwoods

Expedition Leader
I wish that was all there was to it. Turning the engine crank many, many times and nothing is close to lining up.
 

BOPOH

Explorer
are you sure you routed everything correctly? did you follow FSM? the only problem i had with belt was that 1 tooth alignment. To make it easier i believe i started with driver cam(under tension to turn away from check mark) then straight to crank as those two are pretty straight(other than fixed roller). 2nd part was a little tricker to get pass cam aligned and belt seated, but if you pull on belt from pass side of crank and around water pump pull up to get belt on top of pass cam. Last step is to route timing belt over tensioner - IIRC

it maybe confusing but one of the cams will be under tension to turn back(mis-align to couple teeth), so as long as you get two cams and crank routed tight the only hard part will be slipping timing belt onto tensioner even when it's compressed it will be a tight fit
 

BOPOH

Explorer
Man you scared me for a moment :) everything looks good! It should jump like that, its normal. Use regular breaker bar to align marks and put belt over it. You'll have to play around with that gear to make alignments right when it's under tension

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk
 

nwoods

Expedition Leader
Yeap, got it mostly all back together yesterday. ran the compression test today. If you remember this saga started with a reading of 50 psi in Cylinder #1 (dry).

Here is the readings today, from a stone cold block that has been sitting for 4 months.
Cylinder Pattern (from front bumper looking aft):

5 6
3 4
1 2

Compression readings:
5: 180 PSI 6: 155 PSI
3: 180 PSI 4: 150 PSI
1: 25 dry - 135 with a teaspoon of oil 2: 165 PSI

So cylinder 1 is bad, but I think its just rings, or maybe a poorly seated valve. It's not bad enough for me to work about too much. I just will be burning a bit of oil. I can live with that. This is good news, so am I going to finish cleaning things up, replacing some older, suspect hoses, replacing the spark plugs and gaskets, and then hope for the best. I might still have the electrical disco ball from hell things going on, but the engine should run, and that is a major improvement. I think this will be on the road (and off it) before Thanksgiving.

Huge thanks goes out to TyTy13 for his hands on help and IncorporatedX and Nick for being my on call support :)
 
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