Hello listers, hope someone's hanging around on this holiday weekend! I've just gotten started changing the timing belt on the T-5 with 130K miles, and find suspicious circumstances. The PO claims to have had the belt changed (last year), but there was no sticker on the ECU box, and some other fixes were pretty shoddy, so I thought it best to do the belt myself to have known mileage on the belt. At any rate, the engine runs just slightly rougher than our '96, but not enough to raise alarm, mpg is about 21 to 22 around town with new wires, dist cap & rotor. Haven't changed the plugs yet, they still look pretty good.

So here's the problem: as near as I can tell, the scribe mark on the crankshaft pulley is currently one valley to the left of the mark on the block when the camshaft pulleys are lined up properly. The question is, would one tooth off on the T-belt make for rough running, or would that be disaster. In other words, did I really find the right mark on the crankshaft pulley? Any wisdom greatly appreciated while I go remove the serpentine belt!

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'96 850 and '83 244 DL both at about 200K; gone but not forgotten '81 245 and '64 Amazon