Dear Andrew in AL,

Hope you're well. No!!! The outer timing belt guide washer's notch must be seated onto the crank sprocket's projection. Then, the harmonic balancer (crankshaft pulley) must be seated onto the crank sprocket's projection. These two parts - the guide washer and the crank pulley - will be "locked" into place on the crank sprocket's projection, once the crank pulley's center bolt is tightened and torqued to specification.

Because the crank sprocket's projection is about 1/16" - after the guide washer has been installed and seated - care is required to ensure the crank sprocket's projection is aligned exactly with the crank pulley's notch. Once that's done, the crank bolt needs to be tightened and torqued to specification.

Once the crank pulley has been torqued to spec, the crank pulley's timing marks (on the top edge of the outer, belt-bearing ring) have to be aligned with the camshaft pulley, which mark must align with the mark on the inner timing belt case, as is shown in the diagram. Thus, the properly-torqued crank pulley has to be turned, so that its timing mark is aligned with the camshaft sprocket.

Unless your car's distributor is mounted at the front of the engine, the position of the large sprocket - just above and to the right of he crankshaft sprocket - does not matter.

Hope this helps.

Yours faithfully,

Spook