Hi there
If somebody would be able to help me with this prob i would be extremely greatful as i'm a bit stumped!

Basically the cambelt slipped on my 89 240GLT B230E when the car was at idle, stalling it. Tried stating it once after that but realised it wasn't gonna fire. took the top belt cover off and could see the edges of the cambelt near the crank pulley were shredded. belt hadn't actually snapped though

so, i decided to take it all apart on the offchance of damage (my haynes seems to refer to the B230 being an interference lump). there has also been a fair amount of oil and gunge all over the belt covers for a while now, which i assumed may have been a leaking cam seal but could never be bothered to do anything about! i know, i know, i'm afraid i am very lazy! ha ha
so, i figured taking the head off would give me a chance to change gaskets, clean things up and replace the water pump o-ring as theres been some coolant leakage for a while.

anyway, to cut to the chase a bit, valves looked ok, all seemed to be seating fine so all seemed ok there. turned the crank so that no. 1 and 4 were at TDC and slapped the head back on with a new gasket and so the timing marks on the top of the cam sprocket and belt cover were lined up. so, no probs so far with both top and bottom end at TDC on no. 1.
retorqued the head bolts up to spec and replaced manifolds just leaving me with timing belt installation. i don't know if i did the right thing but decided to largely ignore the painted marks on the belt as they didn't seem to correspond with the timing marks.

now, with cam and crank at TDC i just had the intermediate pulley to worry about. this is where my confusion began. seemed obvious to turn the pulley until the rotor arm pointed at where the no. 1 HT lead would sit on the dizzy. however, when it did the timing marks on the intermediate pulley were 180 degrees out. it seemed to me that for the pulley timing mark to correspond with the belt cover timing mark the dizzy rotor arm would be pointing to no. 4. errr.............ok

suffice to say i was a bit confused. anyway, this is probably where i became stupid but i decided that if the rotor arm was pointing to no. 1 then all must be ok even though intermediate pulley marks 180 degrees out.

so, i tensioned the belt, put it all back together and decided to give it a twirl. i turned it a few revs on the crank by hand just to make sure the cam and crank were still on TDC. when cam lined up on the marks (and both cam lobes pointed up at roughly the same angle) crank was lined on 0 degress. fine. obviously this was only every 720 degress of crank rotation.
so, i tried to fire it up..............err
it cranked very briefly than backfired like a good un!!! suffice to say it scared the crap out of me
i've tried it a couple of other times after i realised the vac pipe had popped off the dizzy but same thing. a little bit of turning over and then a big backfire.

can somebody please help cos i'm really not sure whether to remove the belt and spin the intermediate pulley 180 so the marks line up. i just can't understand how that can be correct as the dizzy rotor just wouldn't be in the correct position (unless i swapped the ht leads round i suppose but that certainly wasn't how they were before i took the head off)
i'm probably being really stupid but i'm gonna blame my stupidity on the hateful british weather numbing my braincells and paths of logical thought.....well, if you can't blame your problems on anything else but yourself then what can you do!
really really really appreciate any thoughts or opinions
thanks very much
James

Well, first you need a pint of something, surely that's warmer than the hateful weather.
Then, remove your belt and start over. Check the marks on the crank pulley, or the alignment mark on the crank sprocket (a pain, I know, use a good light). Align the cam, mark on gear to mark on back cover. (close to straight up but not quite). Align the intermediate shaft. (about 2:00 position). Also make certain both of those pulleys are on their shafts right, no pins are missing or broken. There's sort of the end of a pin sticking out of each shaft, so should be no problem for alignment if nothing's broken.

Pay attention to the two single marks on the cam belt. One lines up with the cam gear marked tooth, the other with the intermediate shaft marked tooth. The third set, the double, is for the crank timing mark, but it's weird you see: it winds up on the left (alternator) side of the sprocket, and it WOULD hit the timing mark IF you wrapped it around (or turned the engine back 1/4 turn). Silly the way it's shown if you ask me but thats it. If the gears cooperate enough to stay in place, you'll be able to get all three reference points in line and the belt on.
NOW- where's the rotor pointing? If all is well, it's pointing more or less at the alternator, that is forward and to the right front corner of the car. If not, look for that tick on the distributor body top edge, and see that it's close to that location. Closest to the thermostat housing if you will. That's where #1 should be. That's where the rotor must point. If not, pull the dist and make it line up there. Maybe someone got it wrong before. Who knows? And then check your firing order, going around the dizzy clockwise.

GOOD LUCK!
--
Rob Bareiss, New London CT ::: Roterande Fläkt Och Drivremmar!

Hi again
just wanted to say thankyou to all you guys who offered your help. following your advice i've had the cambelt off again to line the belt marks as suggested. cheers Aye Roll. i understand what you mean about wrapping the belt round to get the 2 lines matched on the crank sprocket guide as well. crazy! i couldn't see the significance of those lines at all!!! suffice to say i also checked that the intermediate pulley guide pin was ok and that something hadnt gone tits up in that area, cheers for that suggestion greg_mustang. i did think about the rotor being put on wrong but it seems to have a guide notch inside it to prevent it from being placed on the dizzy wrong.

so, following the good avdice from you guys it seemed as though i was gonna have to pull the dizzy and rotate it 180 as having lined the intermediate pulley bang on the timing mark (at 2'o'clock as Aye Roll suggested) the rotor was indeed pointing at number 4. bugger.......
so, to recap i now have cam at TDC on 1, crank at TDC on 1 (well, and 4 obviously!) & intermediate pulley on timing mark - everything lined up correctly.
before flipping the dizzy i decided to swap the leads round and try it like that. suffice to say, crank, BANG! and no firing up
so, pulled the dizzy out and flipped it 180. now have all pulleys lined up and a rotor pointing to 1. crank, BANG! again...............

doh! so, i'm shit out of ideas now. i guess its looking like maybe i had some valve damage afterall. and it really did look like all was ok as well. if the head isn't bolloxed then i really can't see what the prob is. i mean, if the problem is all timing related (ignition timing as opposed to cam which i'm pretty sure is correct) then surely it would make an effort to fire and run like shit instead off backfiring when cranking it over?!

sorry to ramble on everyone. i'm new to volvos and have never done any work on one before although i do appreciate and agree with you alberto, that they are relatively pleasurable to work on cos of all the space. always a bonus! plus there is a nice flat area in front of the rad to put my beers on while im working!! sweeeet

so, i was really just wondering if anybody maybe had any more ideas as to what they think the prob could be
i appreciate everyone giving up their time to help me out
thanks everyone
James

Well definately on the 89 the distributor is on the intake side, hence you DO need to adjust the middle pulley.

So you say the pulley is 180 degress off?

I would say remove the pulley and make sure that the guide pin is still intact i.e. it is not spinning on the shaft. The pulley can really only go one way and would not be off.

Maybe your rotor is on wrong?


Greg Mustang
Montreal
Canada

It's also possible that someone else goofed with timing the intermediate shaft while installing a timing belt, and they compensated for it by removing the dizzy hold-down bolt, lifting it clear, rotating the shaft and putting it back in place. This has been known to happen... my '70 Mercedes was reassembled with the distributor gear one tooth off from the intermediate shaft so I could never get enough advance within the range of adjustment. That's really no great sin, until the next poor schmoe tries to do a simple job and it turns into a fiasco because he didn't know the intermediate shaft timing mark was way off... but DON'T go messing with your distributor gear timing until you're sure everything else is right.
-Chris

James,

I'm not sure, but if your distributor is in the front part of the engine, you need to align it as you're doing... if your distribuitor is in the back of the engine, at the back of the camshaft, you don't have to worry about the intermediate pulley....

It's just a "crazy pulley"... it doesn't matter where it's pointing.

I've changed timing belts on Volvos many times, and although not an exact "pleasure", I really enjoy it because of the simplicity of it. Kudos Volvo!

Look, one think that has happened MANY times to me... I got the cambelt installed, and everything lined up, but when I release the tensioner, the belt gets 'taught' (I mean, not sloppy, but streteched)... as the belt gets stretched, it MOVES either the crank or even the camshaft from its REAL timing.

It's been more common for me to have the crank move about the length of one tooth.

I hope this helps... if it doesn't a fellow brickboarder will help for sure!

-Alberto


PS: Check out my car @ http://blogtaino.blogspot.com

1) cam on the cam mark
2) rotor exactly at the tic mark on the lip of the dizzy (cap off, look closely)
3) crank belt guide notch on the relief mark on the rear belt cover (find the vertical raised bar behind the top of the crank gear)

It take 5 minutes and I have never had a problem, unless I slip the belt at some point.