Sorry, this may be long but I have a couple problems resetting timing. I don't know much history on this car, but supposedly the water pump and timing chain had been replaced recently. My son bought it and gasket blew after 300 miles. Anyway, I think I messed up when removing timing chain and camshafts and have decided to reset timing. So, I have the # 1 piston TDC, the alignment mark on the crankshaft lined up with alignment mark on oil pump. Cam shafts are all off (not 90 Degrees to head flanges), and none of the gold colored links match up. So, I remove the chain, set all cam shafts with alignment marks at 90 degrees to the flange, gold links on the alignment points with 12 pins between each alignment point. When I try putting the left side i have a hard time because when setting the points to 90 degrees, the shafts keeps snapping to the left or right. I finally manage to finesse it so stay in place. According to the diagrams I saw, after installing the cam shaft primary sprockets, the alignment marks are not located the same as diagrams, but for curiosity I put the timing chain on. I line up the gold links to the alignment marks on cam sprockets, but the right side sprocket bolt holes will not line up with the ones on the hub. The gold link that supposed to line up with the point on the crank falls way short. Impossible. Is it really necessary that the gold links line up as long as I have the cams and crankshafts lined up. Also, on both left side camshafts secondary sprockets, the are gold colored triangle four teeth to the left. Coincidentally, when those are both at 90 degrees, the camshafts do not snap left or right, but sit naturally. Are those also alignment marks and should I be using those as a guide instead of the machined ones? I added pictures and labeled them to help someone understand what I'm seeing and maybe not explaining well. I guess to sum up my questions: 1. Do I really need the gold links matched with alignment marks on primary timing chain. 2. Should I be using the gold marks instead of the machined ones on the secondary chain sprockets. 3. Did I screw up and need to start over? What is going on? Please check out the pics. Thanks.
It sounds like you need to remove the chain and start again. From the looks of it, you have all the correct marks identified.
You'll have to remove both camshaft sprockets from the camshafts, or you'll never get the chain timed. This must be done correctly or you can damage the valves. The gold links MUST line up, it is critical.
On the camshaft chains, same story, the gold plated links must line up with the dot in the sprockets.
I outlined how to time one recently in this thread, see post #2:
1. Follow the FSM procedure and sketches precisely, and it will be right.
2. When the crank sprocket mark is lined up with the oil pump mark, piston #1 is *not* at TDC. It is at 60° ATDC.
3. If you look at your first photo, you will see a square hole in the front end of both intake camshafts - made to plug a 3/8" breaker bar to force the camshafts to line up the sprocket and cam bolt holes so you can get the bolts in with the chain and sprockets lined up as prescribed by the FSM procedure.
BTW - with the crank mark lined up with the oil pump mark, since you are at 60° #1 ATDC, you are free to rotate the camshafts totally without damage since all pistons will be well away from TDC (pistons 1 and 4 will be at 60° ATDC, 2 and 5 will be at BDC, and 3 and 6 will be at 60° BTDC).
Hey thanks for responding. I know that I can rotate the cam shafts with the 3/8ths adapter to line up the sprocket and camshaft hub bolt holes, however that will cause my secondary cam sprocket alignment marks not to line up with the 90 degree setting. Also in my second picture the triangle on the primary sprocket is way off toward the inlet side, but the secondary points in that picture are perfectly lined up to 90. I had the sprockets free floating when I rotated the cam shafts to line up so its physically impossible to have both be in place according to the diagram. I had to use the 3/8ths on the LH side camshafts to find a perfect balance to keep the shaft from jumping left or right, but, if I use the gold triangles as a reference, it's much closer, although the gold links will not line up with the alignment points. It's frustrating man! It seems pretty straight forward, no too complicated. As I see it, that LH primary sprocket can not possibly align properly with the secondary alignment. I'm stumped.
I think maybe the part that you are missing is that once you have the secondary chains installed with the marks in the proper places, when you go to install the primary chain with its marks, you do in fact rotate the cams to accomplish that. IOW, while aligning things for the primary chain, forget about what happens to the secondary chain marks - they *will* be rotate/moved. HTH.
Ignore movement of the secondary chains and their marks when setting up the primary chain alignment. In these next two sketches, pay attention to the sprocket marks *and* the notches on the fronts of the camshafts - both the notches on the passenger side cams should be pointing straight up, and the ones on the driver's side should be pointing it looks like close to 2 o'clock, and lines drawn thru the centers of the 2 sprocket bolts on each intake camshaft will be parallel to the front top edges of the heads. Where are the secondary chain marks at this point? Don't care:
At least from his pictures in the first post, it looks like the crank was at the proper 60 ATDC. As long as the crank has been at this position all the time, I assume there has been no valve damage.
O I think I made progress. Since being advised I could disregard the secondary points after initial set up, I was rotated the cam shaft boltholes to line up with the primary sprockets holes, with the bolt holes parallel to the flange, and all the gold links fit exactly to all the alignment points according to the diagrams! I was going to throw a picture up but too late tonight. Excited to assemble the rest of this thing and fire it up & see what happens. The only concern I have in the back of my mind was the cam shafts trying to jump left or right as I lined up the bolt holes. Took two of us to hold everything still to line everything up. Normal I hope? Thanks again to the people trying to help, awesome!
I think about two summers ago, I was swamped with 2.7L water pumps on Sebrings and stratus'. Maybe just one Intrepid. I think I did about 8 or 9 of these chains and pumps almost in a row. (Seems once the service advisors find out who has the knowledge...) Anyway, the transverse engines work exactly like the Intrepids do and I developed a method for installing and timing these. The best advice I could offer was to set up all the colored links at the right place with the cam sprockets rotating freely. (No bolts in the cam sprockets). And then once the tensioner slug was released and holding tension on the chain, rotate the cams until the bolt holes lined up. All this could be done without rotating the crankshaft sprocket at all.
Special thanks to Bill for the very clear detailed images!
Posting a couple pictures to show what I ended up with. One picture show both primary sprockets with alignment points and gold links lined up, and bolts parallel. The other picture I wanted to show the gold colored triangle on the secondary I was talking about. You can see it's 4 teeth left of the machined point, and curiously is points about the same angle as the triangle in the primary. Ready to slap this thing together.
UPDATE: Finally had time to finish putting it back together. Went for a start and it fired up right away. Nice, smooth, and quiet.
The story behind this is my son injured himself in basic training and was medically discharged. What little money he had saved he bought this car with. It lasted 300 miles and it suddenly overheated and a head gasket blew. I felt bad for him so I put a down payment and co-signed for him to get a grand prix super charged, etc etc. So now I have this Intrepid and what to do? I don't work on cars except brakes or easy stuff. I just have never gotten in to working on them. Options are put it in craigslist, sell it cheap enough to make it worth someones while and cut my losses, or donate it and call it a tax write off, or rip in to this thing and see if I can fix it. I'm ripping in to it....what do I have to lose. I was a flight line F-16 mechanic for years so I do have mechanical ability. So with the help of a chiltons and this forum I got this thing going. I've only put 20 miles on it so I'm still cautiously optimistic.
Back to start up today. I was venting the heck out of the cooling system. Car was running several minutes and temp gauge was almost halfway. I check to see if car blows heat and it does not. Uh oh. I keep venting the system. I know the coolant is boiling. No heat. Shut down and restart a couple times same result. Cooling fans not coming on....crap! I rev the engine several times, heat comes on...hmm. I shutdown and see coolant had gotten sucked down finally. I start again and am still venting the system. I rev it at 1 1/2 RPM's for a minute then let up....cooling fans are fired up! Heat is still on! I drive it around the block and it;s good. I hit the highway and do 80 for a while. Engine is running smooth, not overheating. Feeling pretty good. It was kind of a pain in the ass changing head gaskets but I have to admit I actually enjoyed doing it. It certainly paid off. I'm also glad I reached out for help here because I was stuck when it came time to resetting the timing, which I messed up during dis-assembly. Thanks for helping us out.......
*** Note: In case someone else who made have had similar problems with overheating and head gaskets....I took the heads in to a machinists. They were warped but they pressure checked good. They milled them down and gave me shims. So if you're taking the time to go after head gaskets, get those heads checked!
...The story behind this is my son injured himself in basic training and was medically discharged...So with the help of a chiltons and this forum I got this thing going...
Yeah +1 I took mine out, thought about fixing it up and selling it for a decent amount of money since it was an a-one motor. Know what I ended up doing? The first person who offered me $150 it out of the blue while I had it sitting on a pallet didn't have to twist my arm. I told him to take it, and take it away like it was hot. LOL
Always had intentions of doing the TC/WP but like you... Just a nasty chill goes up and down your spine thinking about the engine and working on it.
And, I highly recommend you plan ahead for a longer than usual time when doing repairs on a 2.7L.
I have done lots of work with these engines and have found that it is totally unforgiving to those who try to rush through the job. Despite the agony of torquing all those caps on the cams or, installing a set of valve guide seals, I usually have pretty good luck with these.
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